


it hurts to become

by dinosaur



Series: infinity times infinity [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Asexual Character, Body Modification, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Multi, Other, Relationship Negotiation, Spaceships, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3369920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/dinosaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens is they soar on top of the flares. </p><p>They're lightning. They're living breathing atomic fury of so many reactions, fast paced and fucking thrilled at themselves, giddy with the rush of new love and new worlds. What happens is they get a contract to do some contact and retrieval on the west end of the Twin Nebulae. </p><p>What happens is they screw up and crash down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it hurts to become

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liquidmeasure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidmeasure/gifts).



> For the prompt “The motley crew of an interstellar spaceship AU!”  
> Hope it didn’t go one wormhole too far, dear. I was tickled pink to get this prompt, thank you, Jenn. 
> 
> Title from Andrea Gibson's "I Sing The Body Electric; Especially When My Power Is Out". 
> 
> Super-duper thanks to everyone who listened to me prattle on/talked back/redirected me about the intense intricacies of this for hours and hours: Sika and Syar and Jachs and Arden. My beta, aka my editing guardian angel, Sara, thank you. Also thanks to the mods for their impeccable and sweet job on this. S’been a delight.

...

_I said to the the sun_  
 _“Tell me about the big bang”_  
 _The sun said_  
 _“it hurts to become”_  
  
 _I carry that hurt on the tip of my tongue_  
 _And whisper bless your heart every chance I get_  
 _So my family tree can be sure I have not left_  
 _You do not have to leave to arrive_  
 _I am learning this slowly_

_..._

Andrea Gibson, "I Sing The Body Electric; Especially When My Power Is Out".

 

\--

 

"Hey," Niall says, trying for a smile. He leans back against the wall tiredly.

The ship whirs back at him, punctuates with a sharp click.

"'m Niall, yeah." he says, quiet. "Sorry to be loud on the first rotation."

The ship hums a few notes at him, sounding suspiciously like Zayn.

Niall laughs to cover up the sharp pang in his chest. Their ship, the ship they all grew up on, grew into, grew too big for, used to do that. They say it's a character trait, the mimicry. It used to be cute.

Now, Niall just wonders how much of their future is going to be spent ignoring the aching regret of things lost.

He knows crews move on from losing their ships, but he also knows most crews aren't them. Most crews haven't carved out an irreversible space in each others' heads and dropped all their emotional baggage into it for four revolutions.

It sounded like a good idea at the time, though.

 

\--

 

What happens is they soar on top of the flares.

They're lightning. They're living breathing atomic fury of so many reactions, fast paced and fucking thrilled at themselves, giddy with the rush of new love and new worlds. What happens is they get a contract to do some contact and retrieval on the west end of the Twin Nebulae.

What happens is they screw up and crash down. And like all good ships, theirs protects them, at its own cost.

And now they're trying on a new one. None of them actually want it to fit.

It's awful.

 

\--

 

The ship’s bay stretches smooth and giant around them. A domed expanse of bright gridded walls and floors, connections to the ship in every line. When the ship’s active, it’ll all burst into color responses based on algorithmic feedback from the ship’s connection to all of them that serve as a language and an expression all at once. Alone, it stands a cool dark blue.

Their old ship was a mix of an organic and an inorganic design, cobbled together and unlikely and sorta live wired. This one, Niall thinks, pressing his hand to the grid he’s pulled up into a chair, is more of a building energy, a constant flow. Brand new out of the farm, this ship has been specifically designed for them, not thrown together like they were. In theory, it’s better.

“This is shit.” Louis says, laid out on the floor, with his hands curled on his stomach. His skin is a bright green against the popping red of his jumpsuit he always picks to accentuate it. Only Lou, Niall thinks fondly.

“It’s not shit. It’s just – different, Lou.” Liam says, from over on the other side of the bay, hands pushed into a jack port, a mess of writhing wires and ship parts.

“Sure, Li. So, pray tell – how exactly is it different?” Louis sounds unconcerned.

Liam looks up from the wires and blinks like he’s not sure where he is, let alone what Louis’ asking. He’s been prepping for the engine to be slotted for so long his eyes have gone electric blue at the edges with too much coding.

Niall coos at him a bit, shuffles over to run his hands down Liam’s back.

“S’okay, hon,” Niall whispers.

Liam sags back into the touch, the ersatz planes of his synthetic flesh a firm contrast to the squishiness of Harry and Zayn’s organic skin and muscles, no matter how human all of them all look. Niall digs in with his fingers, tries to run out some of the tension Liam’s holding. He hasn’t recharged in forever.

“I don’t know,” Liam says eventually.

“Here, here.” Harry agrees from where ze’s playing noughts and crosses with Louis’ tattoo mods. Zayn's playing against zir.

Their bodies are jumbled over one another, a mess of curls and spandex and vintage leather. Harry’s wearing clothing for once, in deference to the mechanics and officials still occasionally wandering while they’re getting ready for first liftoff. Niall wrinkles his nose.

“Yes!” Zayn lets out a triumphant crow that has Harry whining and Louis smirking. Zayn puts his hand out for Louis to highfive and gets a kiss to the palm instead.

The touch snaps all of them to attention.

The link, a constant hum at the back of all their heads, the one mod they all share, has been too quiet for the past couple of weeks. Recovery from injuries, emotional and physical, everyone always says, leaves mental connections like theirs lacking sustaining energy. But now, now it bursts across all of them, like one more touch was all it needed to fill its tank back to full and reignite.

It feels like a solar flare, like a channeled electrical storm, like four orgasms too many. It bowls them all over.

“Shit!” Louis snaps. There’s a scuffling sound like he’s shoving Harry and Zayn away. Over that is the sound of a high pitched whine, getting louder and louder.

Niall gasps, his hands still locked on Liam’s shoulders. The contact bites now, sparks of feedback running visibly along Liam’s micro tissue. They’re running down his arms to where he’s still connected to the ship.

_The ship._

“Fuck,” Niall spits. He jerks his hands away with a sharp crackle. “Liam is still jacked in, fuck.” He shouts at the rest. There’s silence and then the sound of cussing.

Niall pivots around Liam, making sure not to touch him again. Louis and Zayn have almost reached them. Harry’s pulled one of the floor’s grid fibers up and is furiously pulling at zir sleeves, trying to get access to the ports on zir arms. Liam -

Niall’s hands hover, useless. Liam’s eyes have gone glazed over with script and he still hasn’t moved.

They were specifically warned against this. Simon himself came by to tell them to be careful, to not mess this up. _Do not_ plug into the ship before all the bugs have been cleaned off. _Do not_ plug in alone because one spike in you or the ship could start the integration process.

Harry going in will help alleviate the pressure, but only if Liam isn’t too deep. Niall ducks down to look at the wiring Liam is entangled in, leaves Liam to Louis, who’s got his wrist ports lined up to Liam’s on his arms, and Zayn who’s digging furiously through a med transport kit.

Niall presses at the edges of the grid port, tries to untangle the mess Liam’s got himself into without accidentally jacking in. This is a shitting mess, Niall thinks.

“Niall?” Louis presses.

Blue red red blue green white. There’s too many lines for Niall to follow.

“Niall!”

“I don’t know! It’s got pigments from nearly everything in here.” Niall says, anxiety riding his body like a one way ticket to his head. The link is a messy disaster zone. He tries not to look at it. Blue. But no purple. No grey. “Harry! It’s probably a backup for the engine containment. Something secondary, but a lot of –“

“Got it.” Harry booms, the grid around zir sparkling like a live wire, nearly burying zir in gold. “Louis, _now_.”

Louis closes his eyes and shoves open a connection between Liam and him, forces enough power into it to bowl both of them nearly over, Louis clawing into Liam’s arms to keep them connected.

Niall tips backwards. Hands catch at his elbow, Zayn tugging them both back. Too close and they’ll all just be pulled under. Redundancies, Niall hears Simon say again. Always redundancies.

“Liam, Liam. Liam.” Louis slaps his cheeks.

Liam is gasping like he’s just done a free fall. “Shit. Shit. Don’t try that.” He bats at Louis, hands moving sluggishly, then mutters, “I think I need a nap.” And promptly lies down and closes his eyes.

Niall’s laugh gets caught wet in his throat. “Fuck, Louis is he –“

Louis shakes his head, pressing his hands to Liam’s chest and arms and face. “Fine. I think. Just.”

“Needs a reboot. Leave him be, Lou.” Zayn says, looking down at Liam briefly as he walks back to Harry, the magnifying mod in his eye like a freckle sparking bright for a second.

Louis makes a sour face at Zayn’s back but doesn’t say anything, shoulders drawn. Niall shuffles over to him, inhaling sharply when his bad knee objects. He curls a hand around it briefly.

Louis raises his eyebrow and Niall shakes his head.

He’s fine, honest. He’s avoiding the link like it’s his only job in the universe and his knee feels like it’s been split open again and his fingers are trembling but he’s _fine_.

Louis must really be upset because he leaves it alone without calling Niall out. Across the deck, Harry hisses loudly.

Louis is up in a second, two steps towards the pile of Harry being hovered over by a tense Zayn.

“Stop Lou, ze’s fine.” Zayn says, rummaging through the med kit.

Louis makes a sign somewhere between fuck you and I’m gonna throw you off ship and thank you at Zayn’s back.

“Just stings.” Harry grits out.

Niall skirts the edges of the link enough to send a small thread of comfort. Harry drops zir head back on the grids enough to smile at him.

The bay door swipes open with an echoing click they all jump at.

Zayn cusses as Harry jerks away and whirls around to glare at the intrusion.

The doorway is half filled by a service tech Niall hadn’t got the name of. One of those with a pinched face that always makes Niall think he should be anywhere else doing anything else just to not be under their eye. The tech takes in all of them in lying on the floor, messed up and stressed, then drawls, “Everyone okay? We just got a surge in all our readings.”

“We’re fine.” Zayn says, firm.

The look the tech gives him says pretty clearly how pitiful they appear to the rest of the universe right now. Niall bites back a fuck you by focusing on the feel of Liam’s hands in between his. Zayn and Louis don’t bother.

“Get out.” They say as one impassive, glaring unit.

“Please,” Harry adds, false cheer like a clear coat over zir anger.

The mechanic makes a sour face and vaults off. Zayn decompresses back into Harry’s arms.

“You have to be careful with that burn,” Zayn sighs at Harry.

“Okay,” Harry whispers, rubbing one hand firm against Zayn’s side.

Zayn closes his eyes.

The bay is quiet for a moment. Liam’s still out but it doesn’t look scary, just like he’s recharging while laying on the gallery couch or stretched out taking a nap with Harry. Niall looks up to see Louis watching them.

“So, comm implants it is.” Louis says, blithe.

“We haven’t voted yet, Louis.” Niall says.

“Are any of you really gonna vote for doing individual neural links to this ship after what just happened?” Louis is looking at his nails, but the effect is kinda ruined by the way his hands are shaking.

Harry and Zayn are both silent. Zayn bites down on his lip and Harry looks close to tears.

Niall looks away from all of them and back down to Liam. “No.” He says, almost quiet enough to disappear under the residual energy hum.

“But – We don’t know it was a bad thing.” Harry says, chewing over the words carefully. “Or like a bad thing having to do specifically with the link.”

“I think it’s _safe_ to assume.” Louis sneers.

Niall throws him a look, then looks back to Harry. “Haz, I’m not sure what else-“

“I’m just –“

“Do you wanna vote yes?”

Harry stands still for a moment, finger clenching. There’s always something riding the air between zir and Louis, something just the painful side of too intense. But now it seems twisted up, made into something ugly. It makes Niall bite his tongue, fingers pressing hard into Liam’s arm.

Zayn sighs as he eases out from them, gets his medkit. He kisses Niall’s temple as he drops down next to him, gets to work on checking out Liam’s vitals. Niall backs off a bit so he can focus, but also to try and ease some of the tension between Louis and Harry. It’s giving him a headache already.

“Enough,” He says, quiet, moving between them.

Harry droops down a bit. “No,” ze says, finally. “I just wanna be sure it was the link.”

“Right well, you know anyone else with a highly volatile and experimental emotional pathway to four other people jammed up their hippocampus? Do share with the class.” Louis says, arms barricaded across his chest like he can’t take the chance that anything is gonna work its way to his heart.

“S’not in de hip’camps,” Liam slurs.

“Liam!” Louis spins and drops to the floor hard enough to make Niall’s knees ache in sympathy.

“Me, yayyy.” Liam mumbles, flopping his arms about, nearly hitting Louis’ head. He looks remarkably unbothered by the possibility.

“Shh.” Zayn says, one hand pressed to Liam’s head, tattoo mods whirling, the other tapping at the chevron panels in Liam’s arm. “You’ve got a bad bump in your adaptor coding right now, give it time to restart.”

Liam stays quiet, but it looks more like a lack of energy than willful compliance. Niall smiles small.

“Bad bump, bad bump.” Harry sings, flopping down next to Liam like ze also needs to be tended to in excess by Zayn. Zayn rolls his eyes but pulls out a plaster square.

“Here, you.” Zayn says, sticking the square to Harry’s arm, the single spot of red on Harry’s ridiculously tan skin. In a second, the plaster has grown to stretch all the way around.

Harry smiles down at it, then looks up to make grabby hands at Niall. He rolls his eyes but lets Harry pull him down on top of zir. It’s less of a hardship than it could be; Liam is closer and Harry is always an amazing mix of squishy and firm. The clothes and the way Harry’s pulse is still sharp, zir grip a little too tight, is an uncomfy new, though.

Harry rubs zir chin against Niall’s hair. For once, Niall doesn’t bother telling zir to stop. His muscles still feel too tense from everything and he’s sharply aware that Liam may not be batting ineffectually at Zayn and half-mumbling gibberish to Louis if Harry hadn’t jumped in without regard for whether ze would get pulled under too.

Niall squeezes Harry hard and closes his eyes.

 

\--

 

A mostly successful launch, 2 major meltdowns over comm implants and a lackluster food fight later, Louis finds Niall in the aft observatory.

The plex is a light blue vibration against Niall’s back. Like a light steady massage against his axillaries, which are aching again. Zayn hasn’t finished configuring all the air supply monitors yet. So, it’s a little too oxygeny in the room. Niall likes it. It makes him focus on breathing and not hyperventilating. Good practice.

The apples of Louis’ cheeks are granny smith green right now. Him and Liam fought even after Niall left, then. The snapping of the link against the sides of his thoughts makes sense now.

Niall sighs and it sounds loud and abrasive in the empty hold.

Louis sighs back, turns it into a half run of notes. The end of it shakes the air subtly. Martians. Niall clicks his joints annoyingly.

“Time for a bit of a cuddle I think, hm.” Louis says, already plopping into the space next to Niall.

He pulls Niall’s bad leg over his, presses his fingers lightly to the curve of the overly warm silicon joint. He makes a face at the temperature. Niall sticks his tongue out. It’s not his fault.

The plex makes gentle humming sounds at them. Harry’s been in a strop all week about it: “It’s trying to win us over with cheating. It’s a devilish conniving ship of cheating. Sweet, gentle, kind, accommodating cheating. It’s a nightmare.”

They’d all made typical mhm-Harry noises about it, but to be honest it’s disconcerting. The ship really wants them to like it, but they’re not sure about it still. It prickles at Niall’s skin, his shoulders, like he’s got someone going full throttle beside him and he’s still coasting on emissions from the last burn out but they’re shouting in his comm to _hurry hurry up, this is so fun, you’re such a natural, look at us together._

Niall’s been trying and failing to tune it out.

Louis presses his fingers gently to the back of Niall’s ear, just under the curve of his comm implant. Niall frowns but ticks his head to the left to flick the comm off.

“What?” he asks.

“You doing okay, angel? You’ve been quiet all week.” Louis rolls his eyes as he says it, like that’ll make it less obvious he’s being sincere. But, Louis’ fingers press the rest of his sentence into Niall’s skin; _we’re worried about you._

Niall looks away at the fluctuating blue supports lining the room. They’re moving sinuously, stretching holds and settling into the ship’s bones. The neural growth has been steady and slow all week. The ship trying not to scare them off. Trying to make up for the first day, Niall thinks.

Only now, it’s racing. Liam must still be swimming in core parts.

Louis pinches his neck hard.

“Ow. The hell Lou,” Niall slaps at Louis’ awful pretty hands.

Louis slaps back.

“So that’s a no.” Louis says, when they’re done and sprawled out, having pushed the plex out into a strange cocoon shape that holds tight around them. It presses Niall close to the coolness of Louis’ skin, the smoothness of his jumpsuit, the sharp almost cloying smell that’s just Louis. Martians don’t bathe or use body products so Niall always knows it’s Lou and only Lou. Sometimes, that knowing feels overwhelmingly intimate. Mostly, it’s just comforting and a little gross.

“It’s a, ‘I’m fine.’” Niall says into Louis’ chest.

“Well, that’s a load of moon rocks,” Louis says, cheerfully. “Glad to know after everything we’ve been through you’re so fond of lying straight to our faces.”

Niall clenches his teeth, reminds himself Louis has had just as rocky, endless rotations as he has.

Everything is just so out of sync right now, all of them tied together but floating off in different directions, pulling, tugging, shoving at each other to try and get themselves all lined up again. Even the link, back in place now – the supposed soft quiet infinite place in the back of Niall’s head, the place that they’ve all poured their energy and time and quiet unspoken secrets into – feels disjointed and ill-fitting.

What was once a ring of certainty Niall could tie around his thumb, press into his palm and tuck close, is now cold and unwieldy.

It’s a shock to the spine. A freezing splash of void without a thermal suit.

He feels vulnerable.

Niall knows he’s always relied on the link more than the others, _“It’s not a weakness, Niallar, never ever that, you know that.”_ But it’s never felt like a detriment until now. It’s never felt lonely until now.

Niall doesn’t reply to Louis.

The lime of Louis’ skin fumes steadily to a bold green. Eventually, Louis tugs himself free of Niall and bounces angrily out of the room, the floor grid curving under him.

The plex hums a sad note. Niall presses his fingers to it gently, flicks back on his comm to send it soothing nonsense chords.

It flickers a happy pink back at him and goes back to its light ambient noises.

At least one of them is having a good time, Niall thinks. He presses his face into his arms, tries to block out the room, the trickling awareness at the back of his link, himself.

 

\--

 

Niall finally breaks down and sets up in the gallery. There’ve been supply packages in the hall the whole time they were loading up and launching. Everyone’s been stepping around them carefully, side-eyeing Niall. It hasn’t been a huge deal. Harry likes zir solutions and Zayn his inhalants and Liam doesn’t eat really and Louis doesn’t always care for it and Niall, Niall takes care of himself.

But it’s started making his shoulders tense every pass-by, so. It’s time.

The ports and grids respond almost too easily to his touch, to his schematics for counters and cabinets and shelves and an island. The ship’s been watching them all, learning, trying to anticipate. Niall closes his eyes and breathes in, unsteady.

Harry comes in loudly, hitting zir elbow on the new island and then zir toe on the new counter.

“Oops.” Niall says.

Harry pouts at him.

He relents a little bit, taps at the control panel to pull the counter up off the floor a few feet.

Harry smiles winningly. Niall considers kicking zir shin.

“Aren’t you supposed to be plugged in, getting a feel for it?” Niall says, watching Harry dig through the power bars, unerringly knowing where Niall unpacked them to. Niall smiles against his will.

“Did. It feels like August.” Harry says, a slight twist to zir mouth.

Niall waits.

“I mean, like.” Harry finally finds an acceptable bar and lets the cabinet smooth closed again. “It’s ordered, right. But it’s like got so much going on, so I’m trying to do everything at once, but it’s humid and sticky with things _it’s trying to do._ ” Ze takes a bite of the bar, “Messy.”

Niall eyes Harry’s bar. It’s orange and some sticky flower from Lo.

“You don’t mind mess though.” Niall says, pointedly, as Harry eats.

Harry opens zir mouth wide back at him.

Niall wrinkles his nose and his primary rays. Harry eats more non-protein than all the rest of them combined. It’s gross and concerning. Humans are weird. Sweet and floppy and comforting with their kisses and tickles, but weird.

Kicking his heel against the bottom of the cabinet, Niall asks, “You gonna be okay though?”

Harry finishes off the bar, nodding enough to send curls skittering across zir face.

Niall watches zir quietly. “You don’t have to lie.”

“What, like you’ve been doing this whole week?” Harry tucks the curls back primly.

“I’m not lying,” Niall grits out. “Would y’all fucking stop already.”

Harry leans forward enough to crowd Niall back into the floating island. It’s empty right now, but usually it holds Niall’s favorite carnivorous tomato-lily. Niall narrows his eyes, wonders if Harry knew that it was empty.

 _You’re being ridiculous_ , he reminds himself.

There’s a new connection ping in the corner of his neuro-net. _You’re being_ extremely _ridiculous._

Niall shoves at Harry’s chest, pinches his fingers into zir’s skin. _Get out._ he flings back.

 _Make me._ Harry smirks, relaxes into Niall’s hands.

Niall only gets a tiny blip a second before ze attacks. Harry’s deceptively deadly in tickle fights.

Niall gives up.

He winds up sitting on the island where Harry’s plunked him, laughing into the curve of Harry’s neck. The island wobbles around, four feet up from the floor grid as Harry sways them back and forth, holding on tight to Niall. Zir hands grip the largest dorsals that line the length of his spine, precise and whisper soft.

All of them are exceptionally careful with them, even though Niall has told them time and time again they’re insubstantial - _“Just imagine a bit of plasma right. They go between planes, wavelengths, frequencies, whatever.”_ But - _“Look how pretty.” “So soft.” “I found a freckle!”_ \- they’re still like this every time.

Niall’s flush is half annoyed, half pleased.

Harry kisses Niall’s cheek like ze’s getting flashes of the annoyance through the link. Which is overly possible; Niall’s blocked off his side of it right now. Last he checked, Zayn was monotone lining over Louis’ still prickled annoyance. It gave him a headache.

Niall sighs against Harry, kisses zir back lazily.

He plays his hands along Harry’s skin, enjoys the soft curves of zir chest, the slightly rough texture of Harry’s pilot implants and tattoo mods. He lingers over the ship on zir arm, the connective blueprint that’s always given Harry an intimate give and take with their ship, his favorite. It’s cold. He brushes off the thought that maybe Harry hasn’t re-hooked in, that maybe ze never will.

“You good?” Harry asks, pulling back a bit.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” Niall says, pulls Harry back in. He shoves back everything but the feel of Harry in his arms.

“Mkay,” Harry mumbles against his lips, then hums as Niall runs his nails along zir hips.

Sometimes, he has to admit, it’s really nice that Harry goes without clothes most of the time. He opens up the link just to let Harry know he appreciates zir’s dedication to the cause.

Harry grins against him, bites down on his lip.

Niall grumbles, bites back.

The link hums a hello at them just before Niall hears Liam come into the gallery.

Harry tries to say hello without breaking away from Niall’s lips. Niall laughs into the kiss, swipes his tongue against Harry’s overly plush lower lip once more before trying to pull away. Harry fists zir hand in Niall’s hair and tugs, tongues deep into Niall’s mouth. The sensation goes straight to Niall’s bones. He inhales sharp and gives back as good as he’s got.

Liam makes appreciative sounds and Harry groans against Niall.

Exhibitionists and voyeurs the lot of them, honestly. Niall pushes on Harry’s chest again. He likes the kissing but everyone else on this boat is a little too randy-ready for his tastes, sometimes.

Harry takes enough time pulling back; it starts Niall giggling again.

Liam looks fresh and bright, rubbing his thumb in circles higher and higher up on Harry’s thigh. Harry turns to eye him up and down. Niall rolls his eyes.

“Alright if you two are doing anything with body fluids, you’re getting out of my gallery, eh.” He flicks little pricks of energy at them in the link.

Liam laughs, returns warmth to him like a solar lamp.

Niall scrunches his nose.

“Don’t even think about it, pilot.” Louis says from over Liam’s shoulder, looking at Harry looking at Liam. “We’ve got about 12 more transition approvals to go through right now. At least that’s what Zayn tells me, won’t shut up about it. Let’s fill it out so he’ll leave me alone and then you,” he pinches Liam’s side hard, dodges Liam’s returning swat, “and the grungy mechanic here can go be ickly pickly liquidy together, mkay.”

Niall makes a yuck face. Ew.

“He’s been bothering me about these fucking forms for _hours_. Can we please do it now?” Zayn’s plopped down at the table, with his head in his hand.

Louis makes a squawking protest.

Liam clucks and goes over to rub Zayn’s shoulders, both of them leaning into each other like tired perennials. Harry huffs a bit at the loss of Liam’s fingers. Niall pats zir tummy comfortingly.

They crowd in around the table, Harry grabbing another power bar, Zayn half laying on Liam, Louis commandeering the entire top of the table for the forms, shoving off elbows that get in the way.

“It’s a holo, Louis! My elbow doesn’t –“

“Sorry, Liam! I can’t hear you! Must be something back with the connection. Please disconnect and try again.”

Niall giggles.

“Babes, can we, please –“ Zayn says over Liam’s complaints.

Louis sticks his tongue out. Zayn raises his eyebrow back and then taps a sequence into the table. A block of grid comes up right behind where Louis is standing. Louis trips backwards onto it with an undignified squeak, landing on his ass with a resounding smack.

Niall laughs the loudest, but Liam and Harry aren’t far behind.

Zayn sticks out his tongue at Louis.

Louis’ cheek twitches and he shuffles the holos in front of him primly. “Zayn, my sun-spot, continue this ill-advised course of action, and be prepared to top all week.”

Zayn gasps. “No!”

Zayn stares at him for a moment before they both burst out laughing.

Niall rolls his eyes and grins so hard his temples hurt.

They calm down after a bit of across-the-table swatting. Liam and Harry are murmuring something about the new gallery layout. Better not be talking shit. Niall leans around Zayn to glare at them. Liam smiles back innocently. Harry grins.

Hmph.

“Serious tho, bud.” Louis flicks the first form at Zayn.

He takes it delicately between his fingers and says, accented, “Yes, Louis.”

Niall digs his elbow into Zayn’s side and sets him off in giggles again. “I do not sound like that.”

There’s a chorus of “Yes you do”s.

The holos shuffle as Harry pulls zirself up to sit on top of the table.

“Load of debris.” Niall mutters.

Louis gives him a pinch and divvies up all the forms. They hunker down.

It’s boring work. Signing off agreements to proper treatment of the ship, something about recycling rates, something about neural input levels for pilot connection, to properly return the ship to seeders in the event they choose not to accept the ship designed and grown specifically for them as a crew. Niall rolls his eyes, but his stomach sits uncomfy.

He slides the form to Zayn before he can linger on it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Zayn frown over it too before pressing his thumb down to sign and swiping it on. Niall focuses on the grid blueprint form in front of him.

“Jeeze.” Liam says.

“Hm?” They all hum.

“They’re really asking us if we’re gonna basically give it up? Just turn it back in?” Liam sounds like someone’s criticized his engine containment field.

“It’s just standard, Li.” Zayn says, twirling a holo dart.

“Yeah but we’re not gonna – we wouldn’t.” Liam almost laughs like the idea is ridiculous.

The silence in the hold rings in Niall’s ears.

“Are we?” Liam asks, small and pinched.

“No. Liam, don’t be ridiculous. We all want this to work, obviously.” Louis says, making a pfft sound that charges the air.

Liam bites at his lip.

Maybe, Niall thinks. Liam hadn’t opposed the vote, but maybe he wanted to. The link bubbles a bit as Liam shoves exasperation at Niall. Niall winces and shrugs. _Sorry._

“I’m with y’all, I just don’t get it.” Liam plays with the cords on his bottoms, then looks up, eyes strong. “We can make it work.”

Niall knows that sometimes Liam thinks a little all or nothing. Zayn’s hand presses at his thigh for a moment, and Niall covers it with his fingers.

“We can.” Zayn says. “It’s just, because –“

“We don’t know it,” Harry clicks zir tongue, summing all of them up in a singular statement like ze’s always been good at.

The ship makes a slight sound like a rusted bucket. At least it’s not afraid to talk back.

“No, but you know us and that's what matters,” Louis says, trying and failing for snippy, landing somewhere between comforting and worn. He looks in between Harry and Liam, intent. Niall looks back down at the form on the table. What a disaster.

Niall looks up, and catches Louis’ eyes looking at him.

The ship’s making pointed, attention-grabbing purple wriggles in the lining around them. It’s a bit like being in the stomach of an over enthusiastic flying pig. It’s a bit awful and sickening.

Niall clenches his eyes shut.

They murmur on around him and he feels it in the link a second before hands connect with his, over the top of his shoulders, gently through his fins, cupping around his face.

Louis – a sharp metallic echo in Niall’s head and a sharp ache in Niall’s heart – presses his fingers into Niall’s cheeks, nudges the fans of his eyelashes. Niall obliges, opens his eyes to look back at Louis.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Louis says. “I promise.”

Zayn and Liam rib him a bit for the sincerity. Louis stays focused on Niall, sharp and too observant by half.

Eventually, Niall mouths, _okay_ , feels the link echo it loud.

Louis nods back and lets go of Niall to launch himself bodily at Zayn. The food fight is a little harsher than usual, a little too tension lined, but it’s alright, it’s fun and it makes Harry dimple too much and the ship turn happy-pink.

Okay, Niall repeats to himself.

 

\--

 

Harry wakes up screaming.

Niall wrenches off his hammock sharp enough to crackle at the supports. He gives the ship a brief pat in apology as he stumbles down the hall to Harry’s room. The floor plex is muted grey, like the ship’s also been jostled awake and confused.

 _Yeah, you ain’t the only star in the universe_ , Niall thinks at it, testing out the ugly edges of the link, muggy and sharp by turns. The grid under his feet gives little red flutter in return.

Liam’s hovering outside of Harry’s entryway. Like usual, there’s no door or lock on.

Niall raises an eyebrow at him.

Liam gives him a wan smile back and taps at the holo scrolling across the doorway’s opening. None of them ever see the point of them generally, too snobby by half. But, it’s nice that Harry’s using zir stroppy hour to take advantage of them.

_‘I’m fine, honest. Head back to bed, I’ll be okay! Xx’_

“Like what the fuck does that even mean.” Liam says, fingers twitching.

“It means Harry’s a load of cloud kelp is what it means.” Niall says. He tugs on the end of the scroll to send it off and nudges Liam first into Harry’s room.

The room’s covered in fabric with poppy prints. It’s pristine and unmessy. Harry hasn’t unpacked any of zir weird ornamental things from Earth. All the strange off-net things Niall still doesn’t understand even after 4 revolutions with Harry. Niall winces, bites the inside of his lip.

In front of him, Liam sighs quietly. “Oh, Harry.”

The bedcovers shift minutely as Harry tenses.

Liam catches Niall’s fingers, squeezes for a second before he goes over to Harry’s side of the bed. There’s a slight sniffling sound. Liam’s face looks wrecked.

“Do you want us to go, Haz?” Liam asks, staying a few meters back from Harry.

There’s silence for an interminable moment. The ship’s gone a nervous barely there yellow in the corners of Niall’s eyes. Niall’s stomach clenches in on itself, echoes back the ship’s anxiety. Great, like he didn’t already have enough. He focuses on his breathing.

“No.” Harry says, thin and muddy. “Please stay.”

Liam moves forward at once, lets Harry come up to cling at him, too tight. They curl together like two nebulae, gravity and sparks and the weight of time between them. Niall slips back out the entryway.

As he walks back down the hall, he can hear Liam talking quietly, “If you knew it was gonna happen, babe, you could’ve asked one of us to stay. You know we –“

Niall bites his nails. He’s spent 4 revolutions with Harry and he still doesn’t understand dreaming really. He doesn’t understand how Harry can willingly let zirself fall into something that could turn on you at any moment, no rules, no commands you can tap to escape.

This is Liam’s area, right now.

Liam, who knows how to always get Harry to push back, who loves the intricacy of dreams in the same way he loves the intricacy of seas of circuits or tons of fiber ware. He’ll bring Harry back down to land and then let zir float off free again, standing guard.

Later, Zayn will take Harry offship for a bit and they’ll come back touchy and smoothed over. Or Louis will physically sit on zir, make Harry his shadow for a few rotations, stay curled up in the pilot room for hours at a time.

Niall knows his part comes later, after Louis and Zayn are conning Liam into designing a new code to grow on the curves of the main port hall.

His part comes when he finds Harry jacked in to the pilot interface, hyperventilating, wet with tears and snot and sweat but so desperate to get on with it, to do zir part, to reconnect in. It’s Niall’s job to activate the autopilot, to disconnect Harry gently, gently. To wrap around zir and not let the rest of the galaxy in.

He lies awake for a long time.

 

\--

 

Eventually, Niall’s counted all the hull panels he can take. He makes his way down to Zayn’s.

The bay is in comforting disarray, medical supplies strewn about in a way that only Zayn can understand. Zayn always says normally ships their size wouldn’t need this much shit, but normally ships their size don’t have 4 different species either.

Niall smiles, jumps up to sit on the edge of the rotating counter. It’s following Zayn around the outer area, like it’s anxious for him to be back.

“What’cha doing?” Niall calls, for the both of them. He taps his fingers soft along the counter a bit.

“Hm?” Zayn’s voice is distant. Niall can just barely make him out, surrounded by ship innards and thrumming energy in the air. Adjustments, then.

Niall kicks his feet as he waits. He’s not usually in Zayn’s bays. His body’s all self-sufficient, best at dealing with atmospheric changes, a respiratory system with low chemical susceptibility. Only, Niall looks down at the silicon that blends into his skin. Only, maybe now he will be. He grits his teeth.

“Hey.” Zayn says, soft and close.

Niall looks up. Zayn’s standing in front of him, a half smile on. In his hands is some overactive fiber ware, lit up and trying to wriggle away.

“Hey,” Niall says. He nods towards the fiber ware, ignoring the questioning lilt of Zayn’s eyebrows, the swirling analyzers of his tattoos, probably checking on Niall’s heartrate, his temperature. “Trouble in the neighborhood, sheriff?”

Zayn laughs. “Are you and Harry still watching ancient Earth movies?”

“Heyyy.” Niall says in Harry’s voice. “They’re good. Very educational,”

Zayn grins full on at him, carefully dumps all the fiber into a recycling hold. Then turns, peels off his adapter gloves and cups Niall’s face. “It’ll be fine, Niall.” He says, nodding gently down at Niall’s knee. Niall flushes. “You’ve made an amazing recovery.”

Niall doesn’t respond for a moment. He knows they’re both thinking about the crash. That split second before everything fell apart where Niall was already on his feet celebrating. The second before a carbon support line came shearing off the walls and sliced clean through Niall’s entire kneecap. The chaos of everything collapsing inwards in one fell swoop.

Fingers inked with careful pressure sensors touch the corner of his mouth. The neural link hums tiredly. Niall leans heavily into Zayn’s arms, lets him hold them close together.

Zayn presses kisses into Niall’s hair. Niall can feel the quiet desperation behind them vividly. All of Zayn’s speeds are intense, full throttle or drifting, no in between. Go, go, go or slow, slow, slow. The stutter stop of them right now is hard on him, the wavy vagueness that’s settled in around their future even harder.

“Love you,” Niall says, going for the one thing they can all be sure of.

“Love you,” Zayn says, flooding the link with his intensity, pushing back the uncertainty and frustration for at least a moment. It’s usually Niall’s job. But maybe they’re all gonna have to start accepting a new usual.

Niall presses thank yous into his skin.

 

\--

 

“It’s just something simple. Niall has to recharge anyway, so we might as well do it.” Louis sounds snippy, harsh under the soft light of the gallery where they’re having another meeting vaguely titled “Shit We Have To Actually Do If We Wanna Continue Being A Functioning Venture Contract Crew.” Number one on the list is, “Conduct an Actual Planet Drop”. A basic, easy, no big deal thing.

It’s proving unsurprisingly difficult.

They’ve got a display of Z1214 holo’d up, specs circling it lazily. It’s a good spot for a touchdown. A good spot for Niall to play in the sloshy cloud of radiation that’s in its deep craters and canyons, put some color back in his storage cells.

“We shouldn’t put all the pressure on one person for anything, Louis.” Liam says back.

“I’m fine,” Niall insists for the fourth time this meeting.

Louis raps his knuckles against the holographs hard enough to send them skittering across the room at Liam, where they come to a jerking stop as Liam puts out a hand to stop them. The ship makes a vague echoing sound.

“Really, Lou?”

Harry watches from beside Liam, perched precariously on the edge of the island. Ze’s braiding and rebraiding zir hair, watching Liam and Louis like Niall watches rocketball matches.

“ _Really_ , Liam?” Louis snaps back. “You think all of us _all_ doing our jobs on our ship while Niall does his on the surface is putting pressure on someone in particular?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Liam tries to hide the glance he gives Niall. Only, with the link that’s about as easy as maneuvering a station through an asteroid belt. Emotions always run sticky through them all, coalescing and dripping down into things they thought they’d left out of reach. Niall scoffs at the same time Louis does. Zayn hums something.

“Well –" Louis says.

“Are we voting or not?” Harry breaks in.

Liam glares at Louis who glares back. Harry continues finishing another braid, watching. Zayn’s tapping the edge of the holo, the analyzer tattoos on his fingers sparking blue with the connection. Niall’s holding onto the edge of the counter so hard he thinks it might turn a bruised purple.

“In favor of trying out a planet drop,” Zayn says.

Niall catches Louis’ eyes as they both raise their hands. Louis is pure green, intense and giving Niall an approving nod. Liam’s arms stay crossed, chevrons glowing red with pent up energy. Harry pauses for a second and then shakes zir head, puts a hand on Liam’s arm to open up a connection and eke out some of the excess power.

Niall can respect that. But also, he’s fucking fine.

He looks at Zayn. Zayn looks back for a moment, and then raises his hand slowly.

Niall ignores the hisses from Harry and Liam. At the back of his head there’s a quiet _I trust you_ Zayn’s nudged at him and only him.

Niall sends back all the warmth he can muster. Judging from Zayn’s responding smile, it’s a fair amount.

“Okay,” Louis says. “Fine. That’s settled. Thank you everyone for participating. This is your captain speaking, please ensure all holotrays and seats are closed and locked into floor grids.”

His voice cracks into the space like a solar storm, breaks the residual frustration apart, settles their link effortlessly.

This is Louis’ part within them. To drop into the tension of moments when they’re all at different ends, and blow it to high heavens. To parse them out individually and fit them all back together, stronger, more directed than before.

“You know what to do,” Louis says, catching their eyes one at a time, the link all at once. “Hands in.”

They huddle in.

It feels like coming home.

 

\--

 

They do the drop sometime during the diurnal part of the rotation, so Niall has enough light to see where he’s walking. He looks back at the ship briefly, its round, paneled sides like a droplet of potential in the empty land around him.

Z1214 is one half of a dwarf binary system; its other half, Z1215, takes up most of the sky. It’s a gorgeous expanse of angry red orange, bright and in your face. Niall stops to admire it for a minute, letting the dust settle back down around his boots.

Niall loves the first breath of non-recycled air. He knows they say you can’t tell the difference, but – Niall stretches out his primaries, fills his lungs – Niall knows you can.

The ridge they’d sensed out stretches out before him, carbon, lithium, a lot of zinc. Atmospheric classification on Z1214 is ‘Dangerous.’ Niall laughs out loud.

He takes the cliff at a running leap.

The air hugs him close as he falls, falls, falls. He waits until the sharp jagged edges are less than a meter away, the radiation thick and soupy strong, before he lets his primaries flare out. They pull him straight back up effortlessly, his very bones humming with the force.

His spine burns. If anyone was around to see it, the colors would be brilliant and overwhelming, he knows. The space around him is curving unnaturally, the air compressing, edges of reality being pulled. It’s too much energy intake at one time to be contained by the dimension all his wings usually reside in. It feels like nothing else.

Niall smiles and closes his eyes.

 

\--

 

When Niall gets back in through the atmo scrub and the outer bay, Zayn’s leaning against the inner bay opening like he always is. Niall grins at him.

“How’s your equilibrium, babes?” Zayn asks, grinning back. Like he didn’t get a running feedback direct from Niall throughout the whole thing.

Niall drops his suit on a recycler pad. “Ace. It was a good sea,” he says, fluttering his secondary dorsals at Zayn enticingly. The recycler absorbs the suit with soft grumbling sounds. The bay glows a brief yellow.

Zayn giggles. “A sea of death.”

“A sea of excellent radiation.” Niall declares, hip checking Zayn.

Zayn swings their hands together, kisses Niall for a bit. His stubble feels rough and tickly against Niall’s newly washed skin. They break apart just as Niall’s feeling pleasantly flushed. As they head out of the bay, Zayn taps the control panel to ‘dormant’. The lights behind them ease to sleepy blue.

“How’s things?” Niall asks, squeezing Zayn’s hand. The link’s been chill, no blurbs or anything, but Niall wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t, really. Swimming makes him a little oblivious.

Zayn squeezes back. “Good, honest. Li ran into a bit of trouble with the aft stabilizers but got the core to balance out pretty easy.”

Niall nods back. It’s smooth for a first run. The ship must be trying really hard to adapt. He runs his free hands along the wall as they turn a corner, sees the colors turn sharp and delighted as he does.

Still, he can’t help thinking it might have been better for something to go wrong, better to prepare them. Niall bites his lip, locks up the thought and hides it away. No need to go cruising for trouble, he thinks at himself.

“Haz or gallery?” Zayn asks aloud at the main junction, even as the link pushes at Niall to go left toward the pilot pod.

Niall laughs, tugs on Zayn.

Zayn gives a shrug. “Wanted to make sure you didn’t need food or nothing.”

“Naw, I’m good for a bit.” Niall says, grinning.

Zayn wriggles a little bit, always excited to see Harry in his element, to feel the thrumming pulse of connections Harry builds full bodied with the ship. Niall can’t even count how many times he’s walked in on them having sex in a pilot pod. It’s cute.

The floor grid tinges pink as they go, but the comm stays at its usual hum. It’s like the ship’s picking up on Zayn’s excitement, but doing its best to only echo and but not build anything.

Niall nudges Zayn discretely. Zayn looks down for a moment and nods back. The link whispers cautious enthusiasm at him.

The feeling lasts all the way until they hit the entryway for the pilot room.

The round room has connection holo pads all around the pilot’s chair, with ports for fiber ware lining the spine and fiber gel in the arms. Pilots go for hours without breaks. Harry’s one of the few that dislikes sitting, usually connects directly into the fibers without the seat buffer.

It’s not usually advisable, but Harry’s always been able to handle it, likes the edge. Only this time, Harry’s arms are lined an angry red and ze’s eyes are rolling like they can’t focus on any one thing. The connection’s stuck in a feedback loop. Harry’s struggling to do something, the ship either not understanding without the buffer or just not understanding.

They stand frozen for a moment before breaking apart.

“Fuck.” Zayn spits, racing to get at the connection pads.

Niall runs around to do the opposite side, using his line to the ship to bellow, “Liam, Louis, cockpit now!” loud enough it reverberates down the walls.

Harry winces but still stays in. Fucking idiot.

Zayn glances at zir from the third port he’s shutting down, orders sharply, “Harry, let it go, you don’t have to finish – just let it go.”

“No, I can do it.” There are tears running down Harry’s cheeks from the pain of the feedback.

Niall swallows hard against the bile rising in his throat. He fumbles with the last few connection pads, messily shutting them off.

“You shouldn’t.” Zayn says, tugging at Harry’s hands gently even while he sounds livid.

“Let it drop, Harry.” Louis yells, stumbling into the room at a run, Liam a step behind.

“I - ” Harry’s hands are turning purple. The ports are off but the connection will stay as long as Harry pulls at it too.

“Now!”

Harry drops the connection.

Nothing happens.

The fiber ware stays lit up, stays plugged into Harry’s arms and chest.

“Fucking shit.” Louis says, vehement.

Niall’s hands have gone numb and it’s starting to feel like this room also has too much oxygen.

“We’ll have to pull ‘em.” Zayn says, holding Harry very carefully.

He and Louis give each other grim looks. Harry’s started breathing too hard, too fast. Niall’s own breathing ticks up, too. The whole room has gone red hazed. He can’t tell if it’s the ship or his own vision. Liam comes around to where he’s still ducked, pulls him up towards the door.

“Go, Niall.” Liam says, gently pushing at his shoulders as Louis rubs at Harry’s, infinitely gentle.

Niall’s shaking. He has to clear his throat twice before he can say, “I can stay. I’ll –“

Liam wraps his hand around Niall’s wrist where Niall is holding onto his pocket. He hadn’t even noticed he’d reached out.

“You shouldn’t give yourself a panic attack just because you can’t do anything by staying, Ni.” There’s a loud sparking and Harry cries out. Niall feels like he’s shaking apart at the seams. “And,” Liam continues glancing back from Harry, “You have too much free flowing energy right now, okay?”

Niall swallows and nods. He could hurt Harry. If he could think past the anxiety crawling up his throat he would have thought of that. He needs to go.

Liam presses a harsh kiss to Niall’s forehead and then he’s gone.

Niall stands for a moment, unable to trace out the threads of any of their voices in the cacophony of the room – shouts and orders and pleas.

Hands pressed to the walls for balance, he backs away down the hall.

 _Congratulations_ , Niall thinks at himself, _you got your wish._ A rough first run, after all. Guilt lodges in his stomach.

Harry will struggle with it in flashes, bright busts of pain and frustration and noncompliance. But Zayn will struggle quieter, the same brand of explosive, but an imploding reaction instead. Liam will run himself into the ground trying to make everything fit, make himself a better fit, ignoring them all when they insist he stop making changes to his own code. It’ll eat him from the inside.

Niall watches it all playing out like he watches classic plays on holodecks with Lou.

Act 1. The triumph. Act 2. The tragedy. Act 3. The suffering. Act 4. The nothingness.

They’ll all end up there, worn and tired but too tired and worn to do anything about being tired and worn.

Niall drops his head back against the bulkhead and swallows hard. The pressure in his temples builds with the tension of the link. Vaguely, he can feel the rest of them shouting something, Liam docking into the ship to set the autopilot, everyone’s stress building, building, building. Niall bites his lip hard enough to jolt himself with pain. The ship makes a thin beep, worried, unsure if it’s allowed to be worried.

They’re being so hard on it.

His eyes burn. He mutes the link.

It’s all a mess.

He pulls his jumper over his face, lets his eyes overflow. There’s no one here to see him, anyway, but at least this way he doesn’t have to watch the ship echo his sobs in ugly, over washed colors.

It doesn’t feel cathartic.

 

\--

 

Niall goes to the pools.

Louis’ quarters have always had them, though what Louis used them for before Niall came along he doesn’t know, since he sure as shit doesn’t use them to bathe.

They’re still right now, low temp’d by Louis either out of stubbornness or forgetfulness. Tapping on the heat makes the room go a warm-aqua.

He settles in.

Louis slips into the room long after the pools have gathered enough momentum to form waves. Niall’s perched on the edge, watching them without feeling like he’s seeing anything. The link is quiet.

“Ze’s okay.” Louis says, “Says ze’s glad you didn’t make yourself see all of that. Hopes you’re okay.”

Niall gives that the response it deserves, flicking as much of a kick through the link as he can. “Fucking twit.”

“The fuckiest.” Louis drops down beside Niall, offers him a high five.

The link stutters back a tired pout.

Niall closes his eyes against it, lets it sit silent against him.

“Right well, that’s enough of that.” Louis says, pushing loud determination into the link and Niall into the pool in one motion.

Niall sputters and pulls Louis’ ankle down with him.

Louis falls down half on top of him, their bodies slip-sliding together. Niall catches an elbow to the side and swats his hands back ineffectively. Mostly, he just ensures they’re well soaked. Louis shakes wet hair all over him. The waves grow to reach their chins.

Somehow, Louis manages to wriggle out of his jumpsuit. He tugs hard on Niall’s sweater, moves Niall’s arms when he doesn’t respond fast enough, and strips him with the same strange efficiency.

“Still weird, you doing that,” Niall says, because it is.

“What, taking off clothes? Got news for you, Nialler-bee –"

“No, you hunk of debris.” Niall rolls his eyes.

Louis finishes with Niall’s pants, plops everything over the pool lip. Niall ignores the way the floor grid glows a warm blue immediately to dry them.

“Ah. You mean undressing you.” Louis waggles his eyebrows, but it’s a perfect showy gesture. Niall smiles wryly, kicks close enough to tuck himself under Louis’ chin, so he can’t see Louis’ face, so Louis doesn’t feel like he has to force the face any more.

Louis grips Niall hard, breathes a barely there sigh.

“Yeah, cause undressing me is gonna get you anywhere.” Niall laughs a bit.

“Gets me here, don’t it,” Louis says.

Niall frowns, looks down at Louis’ skin fairly glowing in the pool lights, the way the green’s turned a flushy mint. He presses closer.

“You can go find Zayn if you, you know, need to –" have rough, intense, grid shaking sex. Niall plays his hand along the crest of a wave.

“What.” Louis tugs Niall’s chin up, glares down at him.

Niall shrugs the best he can, caught up in Louis’ hands. The link is shifting restlessly, like having a live wire in the back of his awareness. Louis tests the edges of it, prods to see what Niall’s giving it. His eyes narrow.

“Are you being fucking ridiculous on purpose?” Louis says, too sharp in the smoothness of the pools.

Niall stiffens a bit. “No, I’m just saying if you needed –“

“I don’t need anything. And what I want I usually do, yeah?” Louis snaps, like _obviously_ , Niall.

“Yes.” Niall says, small, but. “But –“

“There’s no butts Niall. No butts at all.” Louis inhales sharp and Niall feels it in his own chest. “Not mine or Zayn’s or anyone’s, ok –“

“Fine.” Niall says, curling himself away from the edges of the link, pushing himself down into the edge of the pool. He and Louis are still stuck together, sides pressed and legs brushing, Louis’ hand still holding under Niall’s jaw. Niall tries not to swallow too hard.

The waves slosh quietly against the edges of the pool, a steady contrast to the twisted ugly silence in between the two of them, growing in the link.

“This has never been a problem for us.” Louis says, looking like the words are sour concentrate in his mouth.

“I know,” Niall says, keeping his eyes on the pool ledge. He doesn’t know if Louis is talking about Niall’s sexuality or Niall’s newly torn and scarred over rough stubbornness. Doesn’t matter. Niall pointedly doesn’t check the link for hints.

“I love you,” Louis says, quiet.

Niall blinks back tears. “I love you.” He says back, straightens his shoulders shakily. “I just – I don’t know where everyone is right now. I don’t know the blueprints of us anymore.” He bites into his lip and holds on. Louis’ hand twitches.

“And you’re a stats man.” Louis finishes. “Look.” He shuffles around Niall, pulling him close again and pressing on the hinge of Niall’s jaw. Niall grits his teeth but looks up to Louis’ eyes. He’s frowny in that way he always is when trying to level with someone, but also hold off his natural defensive asshole-ness at the same time. Niall tips a small smile.

“You not wanting or liking to have sex doesn’t mean I don’t wanna or won’t spend time, naked time even, with you.” Louis says slowly, gratingly.

Sometimes Niall wishes he could tell Louis he doesn’t break things on accident as often as he seems to think. It’s the on purpose he should worry about, Niall thinks, mean for a second before he lets it all wash away. That’s what the pool is for.

“Naked time.” Niall says, smiling as he folds up the anxiety in his bones and tucks it where the link can’t find it.

“Hey,” Louis says, tugging on Niall’s arm. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not changing anything,” Niall rolls his eyes.

Louis stills a bit, then pushes his fingers firm against Niall’s secondaries, his lower back, his spine. It feels achingly good.

“Do you need to?” Louis asks, nonchalant like Niall can’t literally feel his mind turning over itself.

Niall stays quiet. It won’t do any good, he reasons. Mainly because he didn’t need anything different before and it was good before, so logically.

“Ni, I change shit around like once a week. I don’t think my office has ever had a desk design longer than a few rotations.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t. My stuff is my stuff.” Niall says, too blunt to pass off as not defensive.

“Fine well, this isn’t just you is it. This is all our stuff. You’re our stuff and we’re yours.” Louis pumps up the link, rests his palms against Niall’s shoulder blades.

“That’s a low blow, Captain.” And it is, they don’t talk about this – don’t talk about Niall much at all. Self-sufficient, Niall thinks. Usually, it’s just, is Niall okay or not, black or white, on or off, surface tension.

Louis shrugs. “It’s the truth.” He tunes into Niall again, intense and sharp green reflecting across the dark of the waves. “Niall – angel, you’re our hinge pin.”

Niall looks away. “Stop.”

Louis inhales sharp and frustrated but doesn’t say anything more.

Something’s tugging in Niall’s chest. Something sweet and settled at the edges. It’s weird. He frowns, tries to parse it out.

He realizes his secondary dorsals have gone all soft, from where they were all locked up, stuck in an uncomfy near solid plane. He shakes them out a bit. Usually the pool does this for him. But now, now it’s Louis saying these things.

“Yeah?” Louis asks, watching Niall close.

Niall fumbles, sloshing waves up to Louis’ chin. “I don’t know.”

The link presses close warm against Niall, offers up something like comfort, something like determination. “Needing someone to say something good about you isn’t a weakness, Ni.”

Niall raises his eyebrow.

“I’m working on it. Let’s focus on you for a second.” Louis says, a mite cloying.

Niall looks away, muttering, “Or we could not.” But his back is still relaxed and he thinks this might be what Zayn feels like when he goes off smoking. This light, airy, vague goodness. He can see how it would be something he could like.

He takes a deep breath. He said yes. He said yes to them and to we and to forever. He said that. He can say this.

“Just. I need y’all to trust me to know me.” He thinks back to Zayn agreeing with him in the vote, narrows his eyes. “Did you talk to Zayn about this?”

Louis lacks the grace to look abashed at all. “Might’ve done.”

Niall tries to push away and for once, for maybe the first time ever, Louis lets him go.

He stills.

He looks down at the space between their bodies, Louis’ arms tucked against his sides like he’s holding himself back. He looks back up and Louis’ face is tense.

“I’m try – I want to do that, Ni.” Louis whispers.

Oh.

Niall nods, a bit stringless. He clears his throat but it still comes out raspy when he says. “Okay. Okay, Lou. I – I get it.”

And he does. He’s getting it, maybe he’s a little stubborn, a little too steady of an orbit, but, but he likes an adventure, he likes improving himself, loves learning with all of them.

“I need my crew to be safe,” Louis says, like some people say my husband, my family, my heart. His voice is thin and wobbly at the edges, diamond at the core.

“Hey,” Niall tips forward to get his hands on Louis’ cheeks, brings their foreheads together. “Hey. We are. You take care of us, always. We’re safe, okay.”

Louis closes his eyes, breath coming sharp enough to sound painful.

They stay like that for a moment, the waves gentling and the colors of the ship fading to a homey pastel.

Eventually, Louis bites at Niall’s wrist, looks up at him from under watery eyelashes.

The link snaps into its natural place, no longer testing the edges of both of them. It triggers a burst of warmth somewhere from Liam. Niall sighs, focuses on letting the waves actually do their job relaxing his muscles, sends Liam back a light kiss at the same time that he presses one to the sharp, lime curve of Louis’ cheek.

“Right,” Louis says, prompt. And Niall knows that’s as far as they’re gonna get tonight, with the weight of Harry and what-if still hovering heavy over them.

He lets it fade, bites his lip and hopes they’ve stuck a bookmark on it large enough to find again.

Louis settles back against the edge of the pool, Niall letting his hands slide down Louis’ neck, his chest, into the waves with a soft plop.

They drift a bit, getting comfy in the pool, Niall swimming a lap or two before he settles stretched out on his stomach across from Louis. Louis’ composed again, looking like an unexplored intense terrain. Niall doesn’t mention it, because that’s what part of trusting Louis is about – letting him go distant and trusting him to hand you a map when the going gets rough.

Niall’s not Louis’ co-captain. That’s always been Zayn.

But sometimes he thinks, reading the distance between them easily, he might be Louis’ partner in other more curling, growing things. Sometimes he thinks that that might be just as important.

He waits.

“There are inorganics.” Louis says into the waves between them.

Niall stares at the unique, homegrown wall supports, thinks through all the possibilities with inorganics. Ships that are faster and harder than anything, ships perfect at the edges and amazingly customizable, ships with sails and wings, ships with no personal neural connections, ships with no quirks. Cold and efficient, brilliant, well oiled.

But -

“It wouldn’t be right,” Niall says. “It wouldn’t be –“ _us_.

“Yeah.”

They don’t say anything for a long while.

“It’s trying really hard, Lou.” Niall says, finally. Because of all of them, they are the ones to know what it’s like to get write up after write up from academy overseers and inspectors about being adequate, could be better, not the highlight. They’re the ones who know what it’s like to try and try and not let anyone know how hard each and every bit of the trying was.

Louis pinches Niall’s wrist a little bit, practically a kiss for him.

“I know.” he says. “But that’s not always enough, is it?”

Niall doesn’t respond.

 

\--

 

Liam and Zayn's sparring has taken over the rec room.

Niall doesn't necessarily care. He knows it helps Zayn de-stress from worrying about things with Harry and Liam needs to do weekly tissue calibrations. It's just, he thinks, popping the holoball with his foot so it lands on his knee, they've literally been going at it for hours. Both of them are tense and flushed and Zayn's sweating a lot while Liam breathes in that deep loud way that means he's having to focus energy on it. Their bodies come together and break apart easily, a steady familiar dance.

Niall sighs and plops down. The sight's nice and all, but -

"Are y'all okay?"

They break apart for a second and look over at where Niall's stretched out on the ground, chin propped on the ball.

"Sure. Why?" Zayn asks, rotating his shoulder a bit. He's fairly glowing. Exhilarated is a look Zayn wears even better than all the other looks he wears really, really well.

Niall shakes his head and nods towards Liam when he looks down to adjust his wrist guards. His movements are slow and deliberate, but his chevrons are flickering a bit and he feels distant, off-kilter in the link. It could be nothing, but this would be the first time Niall has ever seen Liam worn down by the effort of sparring with Zayn. He's an auto, not a human. Circuits don't get tired.

Zayn looks back at Liam and then really _looks_ at Liam.

He drops his stance. "Li, you okay?"

Liam jerks his head up. "Yeah, fine. Ready for another round?" He moves back into position. Niall watches his shoulders shake a bit.

He wrinkles his nose and tchs silently, tapping quietly at the grid in front of him. The ship can run a diagnostic. Niall just manages to refrain titling it 'How fucking long has it been since Liam recharged?' The ship sprinkles a confused grey around the holoball that Niall ignores.

Zayn tchs out loud. "Liam," he says, frustrated.

"What?" Liam asks, sounding genuinely confused.

 _Idiot boy_ , Niall thinks at him. The link echoes his and Zayn's annoyance and Liam winces.

The diagnostic result comes back. _approx. 136.2 hr. earth mean time._

"Fucking hell," Niall says. He looks up to see Zayn's hand already wrapped around Liam's wrist. Liam's face is twisted. "It's been like 5 rotations."

Liam usually recharges once every 2-3, does a bit of down time to let himself cool off, figuratively and physically. This is fucking ridiculous.

"Fuck, Liam," Zayn says.

"I just - there's a lot, okay." Liam tugs his wrist out of Zayn's hand and Zayn glares. "And with Harry out, I need to cover some pilot stuff, too. I'm fine though, it's fine." Liam smiles at both of them like that'll cover the weariness in the link, the tensing and relaxing of his arm muscles.

 _Sure_ , Niall thinks, _just dandy_.

Zayn is even less amused. He starts tugging off his guards, tossing them towards their shelves and pulling his shirt off to drop in the cleaning bin. He pauses by Niall to use the holo for a second, setting up a lock on the equipment in the room, a lock on the engine, citing medical protocol. Niall sighs and Zayn touches his hand for a second, a spark of _thanks love_ , before he heads off to entryway.

"Wait," Liam calls. "Zayn -"

"We're done, Liam." Zayn says, iron cold. "Go recharge. That's an order."

He doesn't slam the door, because there isn't one, but he does stomp pretty impressively. Niall and Liam watch the entryway for a long moment before Liam turns back to Niall, brows furrowed, eyes wet.

"Nuhuh," Niall says. "Look, I agree with him. You can't do this to yourself, mate."

Liam bites his lip. The ship pulses a sad blue just as Liam kicks his foot against the grids.

Niall pulls the holoball close, rests his cheek on it.

"I know," Liam says eventually, still feeling frustrated in the back of Niall's head, but edged in regret now, too.

"Okay," Niall gentles. He waits a beat until Liam attempts a smile and then nudges, "You could probably recharge in Zayn's room, you know. He likes looking after you."

Liam closes his eyes and lets his shoulders drop heavily. He stands still a moment, a squishy, familiar figure of weariness. "Okay," he whispers.

 

\--

 

The only problem with the gallery being his main working space, Niall thinks, is that it also tends to be the place where people gather. Even grumpy, arguing people who were just fine five minutes ago. Five minutes ago, they were all _fine_ , lazing on the couches and idly watching a drama holo that Niall was following more for the steady comforting sound than the plot. Now, Niall is stuck beside two lumps of actual moon rock having an argument about equipment placement in the pilot room.

"Don't touch my stuff, Louis." Harry says, still sitting beside Louis close enough for a cuddle, but with zir entire body tensed and arched away.

Louis snorts and crosses his arms. "Oh, don't worry a pretty curl on your head, Harry. I won't _touch_ anything of yours."

Good ole Louis, Niall thinks, using his usual compliments to bite back at you in the way that pricks the both of you the most. None of them know how to fight without hurting themselves, honestly. The ship's starting to make concerned whines.

Harry narrows zir eyes. "Is that a sex joke? Are you serious?"

The green of Louis' skin burns to an aqua. He looks ridiculous and brittle, puffed up like a lion fish poorly adapted to a space tank.

Niall sinks down in the couch and stares at the ceiling. _Why can't everyone be less argumentative when arguing_ , he thinks at the swirling green-brown of the grids. His body feels fuzzy and prickly with tension, accentuated by the link but also by the the feel of the room, the tension of the ship in the very walls.The past few rotations have been filled with tiny little moments like this, sparks of friction among smooth sailing. Literally, too, which is a little weird for this portion of the system with so many asteroid clusters. He reminds himself to check that all the vents are clear. _Too bad the gallery isn't clear_ , he thinks, more than a touch bitterly.

"I'm just saying, if you don't want me to -"

"Right." Niall doesn't realize he's stood up until the ship makes a small questioning trill. "Out." His hands are shaking.

"What?" Harry grits, still glaring at Louis. Louis is still puffed up.

"Out. Get out of my gallery." Niall says, shooing them with jerky gestures. "Go have angry makeup sex or prank Liam or have a crystal eating contest and lay on the floor moaning about how you're never gonna have another crystal eating contest ever again."

"Why?" Louis asks, ludicrously.

Niall rolls his eyes and ignores how his neck feels like it's carved from ice. "You're making the ship feel ill." _And me._

Loui's face twists in bemusement. "What?" Harry says, mouth dropping open.

The ship plips in confusion, like it also doesn't get why Niall is including it.

"No, I'm right with ya, shiny." Niall says out loud, to the ship. It stills and then fluctuates its purple like a purring giggle.

Louis and Harry are still staring at him.

"I'm fucking serious." Niall hooks a thumb towards the entryway. "This is a peace zone. Come back when you're gonna be peaceful." He turns around and escapes to the safety of his counter and neatly ordered protein supplements.

There's silence for a moment, then mumbles and shuffling and footsteps. They're both blatantly grumbling. Sometimes, Louis and Harry feed off each other's moods and attitudes in this cycle that Niall just doesn't get. Whatever. Niall presses his awareness of them in the link back, asks the ship to put on something rolling and smooth. The ship chimes a yes and a beat later, something low and tuned just right twines through the air. Niall breathes, long, and lays his head down on the counter for a second.

20 minutes later, Liam pings him to check in.

 _Fine. Just couldn't take anymore of it._ Niall sends.

 _Same, bro._ Liam sends back, wry.

The connection drops off and Niall draws himself up.

Okay. Time for work, he thinks.

He settles in at the table with a handful of holos to sign and the music turned down low. The ship hums quiet around him, little splotches of orange wherever Niall touches it.

He's just done putting the finishing touches on a missive to a quadrant overseer about their route through the sector, when the link goes cozy and snuggles up to him. Louis and Harry both feel touchy feeling and lax with affection. They feel at the end of a cycle, like maybe they've eaten themselves all up, or out.

A smile takes over his face without his permission. "Yeah, yeah," he laughs.

The link tugs at him, grabby hands for him to follow.

Niall bites tongue for a second, fidgets with the edge of the form. 

The link tugs again, feeling soft and contrite. _Please?_ they both send him. It's crinkly at the edges like all their best and brightest smiles always are. Niall melts into the table a bit, but keeps his tone firm and disgusted when he replies  _Ugh. Fiiiine._

He can almost hear their offended shouts from here. He laughs and follows the pull, the grid lines sparking pink as he goes, as if to lead the way.

 

\--

 

A week passes without incident. Harry finally gets let off of medical rest and launches zirself into interface upgrades, dragging Liam for technical and Zayn for health redundancies and even Niall at one point. It’s a lot of forethought for Harry.

“Why exactly am I here, Haz?” Niall says, leaning on the back of the chair to watch Harry throw around fibers. He tsks. What a mess.

“For that!” Harry says, pointing with a particularly upset bit of wires. They don’t seem happy about the misuse, and the ship huffs several very loud chips.

He has to save Harry from being eating by fiber ware so he never does figure out why. But, later when he’s just finished baking biscuits the old fashioned way, talking to Liam who’s messing with the wiring in his wrist the old fashioned way, Harry is barely a step away the whole time and it makes Niall feel warm and forgiven. Not that Harry ever blamed him, the sop.

They’re celebrating the successful First Official One Week Without Incident, as Louis’ had scrolling the halls for all of the day, by stopping at one of the deep space stations. One with a lot of homebrewed volatile substances. Niall rolls his eyes. He’s not going.

Harry, however, bounces up when Louis and Zayn come toddling into the gallery, both of them decked in matching vintage leather. Niall hopes vaguely there aren’t any bovine species on the station, but doesn’t bother telling them off. Knowing them, they’d go strategically naked instead.

"You'll get kicked off." Niall says, holding Liam's disconnected hand while Liam messes with some more precise circuitry in the end of his wrist.

"No we won't." Louis shouts. The ship makes a happy slamming noise like Louis has asked it to join his side with sound effects. The three of them flounce off, complete with trailing giggles.

Niall hides his laugh in his shoulder.

Shaking his head, Liam huffs a bit. “Wanna put on something?”

“Sure,” Niall says, swiping the table on.

Both of them tend to get a little restless when cooped up like this, but being in a gambling room with gasses around them that don’t affect their systems is even more boring. He picks slowly through all the choices, Liam cutting in occasionally with a sigh.

Eventually, Niall pats Liam's thigh and settles on a holo about inner planetary explorations. Lots of drops and twists and jumps. And they can play in plasma for a bit.

Niall curls against Liam's side, careful not to disturb the plink of Liam's wrist work. Liam presses a brief kiss to Niall's temple in exchange, gets caught by the flash of the holo dropping 200 meters down into an insect hill.

"Oooooh."

Niall grins.

 

\--

 

It only takes 3 different planets on the holo before -

"We got kicked off." Louis says, stepping into the gallery with a fair amount of stomps and bangs. Harry and Zayn follow quieter, but more touchy, wrapped up in each other’s arms well enough it's impressive they aren't tripping. They look good. They look like idiots.

"Shocking." Niall deadpans to Liam.

"I just can't believe it, Nialler," Liam says back, somber. "Our own well behaved children, run off and banished from a port they weren't even supposed to be on in the first place."

Niall adopts a holo-prompter voice. "What has the good universe come to, my dearest?"

Liam's eyes crinkle. A warning pings sharp in the link. "Nothing but -"

The ship makes a very enthusiastic slamming noise again. Harry waves as ze stumbles along after Louis, Zayn's hand firm on zir wrist.

Niall blows a kiss.

Louis voice comes floating back sharp in that way it always is when he's trying to hide how pleased he is with them, turning his warmth into radiation. "I’m emancipated!"

"You’re loved, too!" Niall shouts.

Liam giggles and sends a rush of sickly sweet cotton rolling through all of them.

Niall laces his fingers with Liam's replaced hand and kisses him breathless, kisses him to the rhythm of Louis and Harry kissing Zayn. A melded brightness from all of them grows in the back of Niall’s head. He can feel Zayn’s hand tight on Harry’s hip, Louis’ teeth digging into Harry and Zayn at random, Harry’s gasps and nails scratching at skin, Liam’s eyelashes fluttering against his. The link roars full with all the places they’re touching and the ship echoes it, Niall’s comm going off in a series of bone shaking rumbles.

Their sync feels so much fuller than it did before, feels nearly perfect, just a tiny disc rotating out of place that Niall can’t pick up on. But this time, instead of chasing it, he lets it be.

“Do you wanna go with them,” he mumbles against the underside of Liam’s jaw, one of his favorite spots. Kissing doesn’t rile him up the same way it does the rest of them. The act itself always feels complete, an end to itself rather than an opening like they all describe.

Liam shakes his head, grabs around to Niall’s dorsals, strong enough to make his muscles go soft and sated. “No, Nialler. I’m good right here.”

Niall smiles. He presses a gentle kiss to the edge of Liam’s neck tats. Liam groans rewardingly, so Niall does it again. And again.

The happiness balloons between them all, holds them aloft for at least another little while.

 

\--

 

Niall wanders off sometimes.

It’s not like Zayn, who needs alone time like he needs sleep and good cereal. But, Niall likes the feeling of being by himself, wandering around spaces in the ship they don’t go to often, and turning on all the lights and making it feel like home for a second.

He likes the arboretum. It’s quieter somehow than the observatories or the dock, like it’s resting, saving up its energy for something. He shoots a query at the ship, but it’s surprisingly quiet about it, giving a hushed few tweeps back in response.

Niall shrugs. They’ve activated every system now, so it can’t be that. Maybe the ship doesn’t know either. He lets it go.

The plex here has a higher carbon count and it amplifies the colors of the grid lines, the thrumming walls, the expanse of black before him. Space is never one shade, but this is almost too much for Niall to take in.

It makes him swallow hard, and sit down close and just _look_ for a long while.

He loves exploring, can’t imagine doing anything else. He loves the way space always seems so closed off but, if you have the courage to jump, will always welcome you in its arms. He loves how the stars burn too brilliant and the nebula spread too vast. He loves how there’s nothing like the nothingness of a calm hour spent inside the eye of a solar storm.

He loves the way that you never quite get used to it.

Harry says ze sometimes forgets they’re travelling. Forgets that they’re on a _space_ ship and that the world doesn’t begin and end with the neural connections ze runs into the net of the ship.

Niall shakes his head a bit. He never forgets.

This is what he was born to love. He knows it.

He kisses his fingers, reaches out to touch them to the plex. The ship vibrates in response, a long warm hum of energy, the floor grids sparking. The link responds back, a steady confiding burn.

They can do this.

 

\--

 

They’re porting on V-7 because it’s the closest organic port to Earth; Harry is due back for Anne’s birthday. They’ll have to shuttle down to the surface on Earth, which means they have to have more supplies on board to keep the ship happy and healthy for however long they’ll be planetside.

Niall listens to Liam talk about it, bored already.

It means a lot of sitting for him. No one to interpret for, no one to cook for, and Earth celebrations have weird music.

He’s doodling on the edges of the counter, letting the ship add its own colorful additions, trying not to smile when it colors the perishas the same color as the potted ones behind him. It’s gotta know they’re usually a bright purple, but it’s still carefully shading all the pinks and oranges in Niall’s sloppy lines.

“Niall,” Louis says sharply.

Niall jerks his head up, skids back into focus. “Yeah?” he says, not bothering to pretend like he was paying attention.

Harry is snickering in the corner anyway, so they probably all know he wasn’t. Niall taps the edge of the control panel, and then watches as the island drops several feet down. Harry jerks and clings to the edges to keep zir balance.

“Hey!” Harry protests.

“Hey.” Niall says, smiling.

“Nice one, Ni.” Louis says, offering Niall a high-five. Niall slaps back, grins. “Now pay attention to me.” Louis flicks his ear, hard. Niall rubs at it. Ow.

“Right so, now that lunar and stellar over here are done,” Louis continues, looking intense all the sudden. “Does anyone need off their used-to-be-regular duties? Any switch ups for any reasons? Any changes in anything? No harm, no foul. Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Niall’s whole body locks up even as Harry’s whispering “I now pronounce you linked for life!”

“What.” He says.

Louis throws him an unimpressed look, but it’s prickly around the edges like he’s prepared to defend himself for this even as he’s nervous about it. “It’s a good policy, Niall. Get everything out in the open. No more flappy this, floppy that.”

“Heyy,” Harry pulls a face like ze’s offended for two seconds before ze loses it in a pile of giggles with Liam, who snort-laughs and links their hands together.

Louis folds his arms and looks stern, but Niall can see the corner of his mouth twitching and he’s gone soft mellow-yellow all over. When Niall exhales it’s only a little shaky.

 _Okay_ , he sends at Louis. _I get it._

The link gives him a gentle nudge from Louis’ end. “So! Who needs what and who needs to not have what.”

Liam and Harry start speaking at the same time.

Niall tucks his dorsals in and folds himself closer to Zayn, who’s looking down at a schematic of their assigned dock on V-7. Landing will be different, Niall remembers. Oops. Probably should have paid a little attention. He rests his head on Zayn’s shoulder gently.

“Hey,” Zayn says. Liam is pushing Harry’s hat down on zir head while Harry pinches at Liam’s nipples. Louis is keeping score.

“Hey,” Niall says. “You all good?”

Zayn quirks a half-grin at him and pats Niall’s tummy. He nods at Louis. “We already talked. I’m good, Ni.”

“Oh.” There’s that confirmed again. But, Niall still forgets sometimes, that Louis’ conversational bombs usually take a bit of forethought and planning, usually include a Zayn buffer and remix, Louis drops them so naturally into situations.

Zayn flips through the dock lock selections.

V-7 is all organic, fully responsive, they could just leave the locks to auto sense when they get there. But, it is polite to inform the dock so it doesn’t have to rush through pleasantries with the ship and get down to business. Organics. His dad would have a fit.

“Does Harry not want to – anymore?” Because reserving docks has always been pilot duty, not co-captain. Niall cranes his eyes up to see Zayn’s expression.

He’s biting his lip, watching the rest across the table. They’re all doing something with holos Niall can’t make out. But the ship has started with the humming again so it can’t be anything too awful.

“Harry, babes,” Zayn calls, casual and easy. “I’m gonna book the dock, okay.”

Harry’s fingers close sharply around the red-green holo in zir hand and it squeezes out - a slop of numbers and figures. Liam and Louis keep their eyes on their holos, even though they must feel the tension skating across the link.

Harry plays off the reaction with a half shrug. “Okay.” Then, quieter, “Thanks.”

Zayn stares across at Harry, all soft bright focus, waits for Harry to peek up through zir bangs to say, “Course.”

They watch each other for a moment and then Harry smiles small and looks back down.

Zayn relaxes under Niall’s head.

“Right. So, has everyone finished? Liam, is your list done yet?” Louis breaks in, sending a holo dart at Liam. Liam squeaks and pulls away his list. “Have you got everything? What’s taking so long, hm?”

“Is your list done, Louis? Because,” Liam leans over the table and Louis backs up in his chair just barely fast enough to avoid Liam’s grabby hand, “I don’t think it is. I see an asteroid belt, a thermos of tea and a cockroach, but no words. Have you moved on to pictograms?”

“Oooh.” Harry says, apparently choosing Louis’ side this time round. “Big word, Leem.”

Niall grins into Zayn’s jumper. Zayn shakes his head, brushing his stubble against Niall’s hair a bit. He taps through the rest of the dock selections fast; landing gear, rehydration for the ship, recycling of leftover installation. Niall tries to pay attention but it’s moving fast. Familiar and quick, Zayn is.

Liam and Louis have somehow become entangled around Harry. Liam’s head is on Harry’s and Louis has a grid pulled into just enough of a chair to sit on so his hair is at the perfect height for Harry’s hands to run through.

“Who. Is sharing first?” Louis says, a low rumble in his voice that the ship echoes like it likes the sound. Niall agrees.

“C’mon.” Niall tugs at Zayn’s shoulder.

Zayn sighs but uncurls and lets Niall pull him along to the opposite end of the table. Pulling up a chair grid, Niall plops Zayn down and then drops down in between his legs to level with Louis. He opens his eyes to glare at Niall for being at the same height without a chair. Niall sticks his tongue out. It’s not his fault Louis is a tiny terror.

The huff Louis gives in return is deep enough to set the ship nearly purring.

“Chill with that, Haz.” Zayn says, mild as he pulls Niall back against the side of the chair, careful of his wings. Niall rolls his eyes. The corners of his vision fill with the gentle swirling of Zayn’s tats. It’s nice and relaxing. He settles under Zayn’s hands.

“Excuse you, Malik. I was enjoying that.” Louis pipes.

“Lists, Lou.” Zayn reminds, flicking his finger to load a holo. It’s a list he must’ve done earlier when Louis and him first discussed it.

“Ah, righto, Zayno.” Louis waves his hand genially. Liam flicks him in the ear and darts back to avoid the return flick.

“I’m not gonna do the landing sequence anymore.” Harry says, relaxing into Liam and Louis around zir like supports. The link goes red with a burst of warmth from all of them, the floor around them bleeding out with the ship’s echo. Harry smiles, tucks zir chin a bit. “Zayn can do it. He’s got all the necessary mods. I’m gonna –“ Ze looks up at Zayn, sharp and sending something between just the two of them for a moment, “I’ll take over some of his ambassador stuff. If- if that’s okay with you, Niall.”

Niall softens. “Yeah, Haz, that’s great.” He reassures.

Harry beams back at him and it’s like something lodged in the side of the link finally falls away. The relief is instantaneous. Niall gasps with it, feels the others echo it.

“Shit.” Liam hisses. “That really works, huh.”

Louis looks entirely too smug. Being the good person Niall is, he doesn’t remind him that it was actually both of their ideas first, not just Louis’. He does stretch out a sharp bite of a connection at Louis though. Louis twitches but keeps his nose in the air. Ridiculous. Niall’s cheeks hurt from smiling.

But – Niall half turns to see Zayn. “Are you okay with dropping that? That’s what you needed?”

Zayn tenses so fast his fingernails dig into Niall’s neck. Niall jumps a bit and the link echoes it.

“Sorry – I – are you okay?” Zayn asks, pulling his hands back to his own lap, looking like he’s already started beating himself up inside.

“Hey, nuh-uh.” Louis orders.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Zayn.” Niall agrees. He pauses for a second to let Zayn take a steadying breath, butts his head against Zayn’s knee gently. He waits until Zayn carefully puts his hand back around his neck before continuing, smiles encouragingly. “You okay?”

Zayn licks his lips, eyes flickering to someone behind Niall. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Right now or yet, whichever. I just –“

“That’s fine, Zayno.”

The link dims back down again, but doesn’t go flat.

Niall turns back around, presses his head into Zayn’s thighs demandingly. Zayn gives a wet chuckle and pushes his head forward enough to fit his hands in between them. He pulls at Niall’s hair the way Niall likes best.

Niall smiles and rolls up his worry and sticks a pin in it. Zayn will lead them back to it when he’s ready, doesn’t take well to being pushed.

“Okay so, ”Liam starts, looking down at his list. Everyone tunes back in, the link settling down again. “I –“

“Didn’t actually write anything to give up.” Zayn says. “Babes.”

Liam twists a bit, ducks his nose into Harry’s curls as ze frowns. “I just don’t know what to.” Liam drifts off, looks disappointed in himself.

That’s not the point of this. That’s not – “The reformations.” Niall says, nearly bouncing with the force of the revelation.

Everyone looks at him. Harry nods quick.

“The growth scripts to patch up all the natural holes from the ship’s growth.”

“I know what they are, Niall.” Liam says, a mite prissy.

“I know you do,” Niall says softly. “I’m just saying, I’m the other person who can handle void or atmo-less for a short while and I know the process. It’s no problem.”

“I – “ Liam starts, mouth twisted. Harry reaches back to hold Liam’s neck gently.

“If you don’t wanna, we won’t make you, Liam.” Zayn says firm, worry only betrayed by the tremble in his fingers playing with Niall’s hair. Niall leans back into them, opens a quick connection to send a private flicker of warmth his way. Zayn sends back a heart emoji.

Liam looks upset still, avoiding all of their eyes, shying away when Louis uses the link to poke at him. Louis huffs.

Liam mutters, “I’m just –“ the indelible, strong line that has always braced them together, Niall thinks. The person who watched their old home burn itself inside out – starting with the reformations Liam himself had painstakingly coded and cared for. Technically, this ship’s reformations should have started when they were still in port. Niall thinks the gear is still sitting in a container in the loading dock.

The thought probably kicks across the link because Liam flinches. Harry, Louis and Zayn reach for him at the same time.

Niall catches Liam’s eyes. He wills Liam to understand he’s not trying to _take_ anything, avoiding the link so Liam doesn’t feel too surrounded. Liam watches Niall back, letting Harry and Louis pet and pinch him respectively.

After a long moment where Niall thinks maybe this isn’t it – they aren’t here to bully Liam into anything he doesn’t want, Liam closes his eyes tight and then opens them. He gives Niall a tiny nod and a tiny blip of a connection. _Okay._

_Okay. I love you._

Liam smiles and ducks his head into Harry’s hands. _Love you._

Niall closes the connection with a wink, loving how Liam tries and fails to wink back.

“Alright,” Niall announces. “Next.”

Zayn’s hands squeeze the back of Niall’s neck. A burst of relief and happiness builds in the link from all sides, even Liam. The sensation rolls down Niall’s shoulders like a good massage, travels all the way to the tips of his secondaries. He shivers and laughs a bit, watching everyone else react the same way.

Liam looks good, more relaxed than when they started, smiling like he can’t help himself. Good. He’s still a little cautious but - sometimes, that’s easier for Liam, if they don’t all address things at once, but if he can do more one-to-one, Niall reminds himself. Sometimes he just needs a bit of time to settle himself into things.

“Louis.” Harry declares, tipping his head back to look him in the eyes.

Louis smiles plastically up at Harry. “Hazzaroll.”

Shit. Did they think this through on the Louis front? Niall tips a large font question mark at Zayn, gets a soft pat to the head in response. Great. Weather the storm, then.

Harry’s nose scrunches with happiness but ze still bites down on Louis’ nose. Louis pulls away slightly too sharply.

“C’mon, Lou. It’ll feel better.” Liam cajoles, reaches around Harry to tug at Louis’ hair playfully.

Louis’ jaw flexes. “I’ll ask you to not presume what will and won’t feel good to me, thank you, Liam.”

Liam pulls away from Louis, blinking his eyes fast.

“Don’t be a dick, Louis.” Niall says at the same time as Zayn. Niall sends calm across the spreading tension of the link as best he can. Whatever ease they’ve regained feels too fragile, like one step could send them all breaking apart again.

“He’s gonna give up the system redundancies checks he keeps running at all hours.” Zayn orders.

Louis jerks and glares at Zayn like he’s marking Zayn down as the Ultimate Betrayer. His skin burns a sharp aqua, anxious and frustrated.

“You need to give it up, Louis. You’re stressing yourself to the point of exhaustion.” Zayn says, a cool intensity that makes Niall glad he’s not on the receiving end. The crackle from the link is enough for him.

Niall cranes his head back for a second to see Zayn glaring back at Louis, daring him to disagree with a medic’s opinion. Technically, as the ship’s registered officer, he doesn’t have to ask Louis to do anything for his health. He could order it. Niall bites his lip.

Louis visibly struggles for a moment. All of them stay quiet, only the ship’s attempts of peaceful humming in the room.

“I’m filing a complaint.” Louis bites.

“Go ahead,” Zayn says, bland. “It’s more paperwork for you, Captain.”

Louis still glares for a moment before he sighs and collapses back against Harry’s legs, turning his head so Niall can only see the curve of his jaw, his skin fading to a resigned mid tone. His chin trembles.

Niall bites the inside of his cheek, feels his dorsals go tight and too solid. Rubbing a hand over Niall’s shoulders, Zayn sighs quietly behind him, but doesn’t say anything either.

Louis hates when they make a big deal of him crying over a drama, let alone him crying over an argument.

Curling over Louis, Harry kisses the top of his head perfunctorily, but not gently. Good play, Niall thinks.

Sure enough, Louis rolls his shoulders like he’s tempted to yell some more, but eventually coughs to hide a sniff and mumbles. “Fine. But I call getting to watch Liam work up a sweat playing with the engine to do it.”

Liam looks up from where he’s drawing a series of droopy, pathetic triangles on the counter. “Oh.” He starts to grin, full bodied the way that makes him seem soft and malleable. Zayn’s breath catches behind Liam. Niall knows the feeling. It’s been a while.

Niall loves Liam. He loves Louis. He loves all of them.

Louis smiles into Harry’s leg, feeling the same thing Niall is - Liam bold and steady across the link, Louis’ own acquiescence underneath like a familiar homey spice.

“No, it’s,” Liam says, wriggling happily. “It’s no problem, I can easily just code it into my engine check.”

Harry grins, kisses the side of Liam’s face.

“Could ask the ship to help, too. I think it might like that.” Liam adds, quieter.

The ship flutters a bright yellow around them, makes an enthusiastic set of yesyesyes beeps. They all laugh. Niall’s head feels full with all of them like a well filled cargo hold. Everything is almost ordered just the way Niall likes it, too. There’s just -

“What about Nialler, then?” Harry asks, turning zir’s too-intense level of eye contact solely onto Niall.

Louis face goes overly bright and Niall closes his eyes against them both.

“Niall is giving up – “ Louis cuts himself off, then says carefully. “Niall. What would you like to give up?”

Niall blinks fast.

He watches Louis bite down on his lip, hard, watches the green of his skin against the tan of Harry’s, the shifting orange of the ship. He knows what Louis is trying to do but –

It’s not the same.

“I don’t know.” He says, trying to reign in his frustration, not let it seep to anyone else.

Behind him, Zayn presses down on his neck like he’s not succeeding. Liam and Louis are giving him looks that the ship mimics in sad mumbles.

“Ni.” Louis says, trying to catch his eyes. It’s hard for Niall to avoid them. The others have left this space for the two of them to fill, a polite kind of intimate distance. It’s a way of closing the circle of five but leaving two of them free in the center that Niall is usually rather proud of. Now, he grits his teeth.

Yeah, objectively, it felt really good when Louis did whatever he did. But that’s not a duty, it’s not even a solid thing.

Zayn tilts back on Niall’s neck, so that he’s looking at Zayn upside down. It makes his primary dorsals tense and relax in equal turns.

“It’s real, okay.” Zayn says, handling Niall more carefully than he handles his medical lasers. “Just because it’s in your head, doesn’t make it not real, or important.”

“I-“ Niall opens his mouth, only to find his eyes watering. “I –“ he tries again, only the wetness has gone to his throat.

Suddenly, he wants to turn away, he wants to tap out. This isn’t what he meant to lead to. He tugs away from Zayn’s hands but there’s nowhere to go. Everyone else is waiting, watching.

“So, you could give up telling yourself it’s not important.” Louis says, firm but not edged. “And I could remind you that _you are_.”

Niall presses his back firm against the grid Zayn’s sitting on, ignoring the way it makes his shoulders uncomfortable. “It’s not physical. All of y’all gave up physical stuff.”

“Yeah, but you’re on top of the physical.” Liam cuts in.

Niall scoffs. “Right. Yeah because the gallery containers didn’t sit in the hall for near a week.” Out of the corner of his eye he can see the ship seeping an off-purple into everything.

“Yeah, but then how fast did you unload everything? Barely like, an hour.” Liam continues, waving a hand like obviously.

“Yeah.” Harry says, nodding against Liam’s head.

Niall breathes in through his nose so he doesn’t respond. There’s silence for a bit and it feels heavy, feels like it’s weighing down on his chest, the link, the entire goddamn ship.

 _You can’t ask them to trust you, and then not offer up anything for them to trust,_ he thinks, angry at himself. _They’re all trying. You try, too._

He takes one final deep breath.

“What if I – we just tried it, as like a trial run.” Niall says, eyes still closed. “See if I, if I like it, if it works?”

“Excellent, Niall!” Louis shouts.

It shocks open Niall’s eyes, makes him jump. Which was probably the point. Asshole. Niall glares.

Harry is shoving at the back of Louis’ head. “Whad’ja do that for, you accretion disc.”

They all stare. The ship makes a confused ping.

“Really, Harry?” Liam says, exasperated but close to giggles.

“That’s honestly what you’re going with, Harry?” Louis says, turning to glare. “I demand a redo. Find a better insult, right now. I’m a-class insult material.”

“Yeah, you are a class insult.” Liam says.

“Next time I’ll just call you Louis then, yeah?” Harry amends politely.

Harry and Liam high-five just as Louis launches himself at them. Niall laughs lightly, still feels a little on edge. It feels like he’s getting off too easy. It feels like he ran 4 km in a full flight suit. His heart stutters with every brightening of the link.

Zayn wraps his arms around him tight, drops his chin to Niall’s shoulder like he always does. He opens up a connection to whisper at Niall. _Sometimes, it’s hardest to even admit something is wrong._

Niall leans into him but pushes back, testy. _Yeah, you taking your own advice, o’ sage?_

 _I’m trying to._ Zayn drops the connection with a kiss to Niall’s neck.

Niall sinks back into him, lets all the tension flow away in favor of watching Harry squeal under Louis’ raspberries, Liam like a solid laughing chorus above it all.

He doesn’t wanna miss anything.

 

\--

 

Niall tucks their conversation to the back of his head to properly bounce around the ship for the next week. He’s always been enamored with V-7, but it doesn’t accept inorganics in any form. This is the first time they’ll get to port there and the rushing potential of it is giddying. Everyone else is revved for it, too. It’s gonna be good, he can tell.

This is what he loves about exploring. The new places, that feeling of home that you can get anywhere in the universe, just by finding a good port with good people.

“Already planning which plants you’re gonna get by the loadful?” Liam asks, coming up behind him in the arboretum.

“Leave off it, Liam.” Niall kicks a heel back without turning around. “No.”

Liam giggles and wraps himself securely around Niall, nudging his primary dorsals flat. Niall huffs once more but allows it. Liam always feels so big like this. Like a 10 meter tall blanket of soft plex rolled into one person. Strong and firm and squishy.

Liam squeezes him like he’s listening in. Niall sends out a kissing emoji just in case. Liam buries his laughter into the side of Niall’s neck, presses open kisses to his skin. Niall grins at his own reflection as they move through a dense gas cloud and the plex adjusts.

“We should get like at least some babaco and jostaberry shoots though,” Niall relents.

Liam laughs into his ear and Niall turns to chomp at him. “Those’ll take a lot of tending to.”

They will. “How do you know that?” Niall turns his head a bit to raise an eyebrow at Liam. Liam deals with the electrical-organics, not the old fashioned organics. “You been talking to Haz?”

“It helps zir calm down.” Liam says, eyes distant. “For sleeping, you know.”

Oh. “I didn’t know you were – you know. Going in with zir, before.” Niall says, feeling like his heart is growing too big for his chest.

“It’s new. Just testing it out a bit.” Liam says, ducks his head into Niall’s shoulder a bit. Niall turns back around and leans his head on Liam’s.

“I think it’s good, Li.”

Liam’s quiet for a moment. “Ze’s scared. Nervous about doing things different.”

Niall hums a chord or two, feels glad he can’t see his own reflection at the moment, holds Liam’s arms tight. “I think we all are, yunno.” He says, low.

There’s a loud banging from just outside the doorway. They both spin sharply just as Harry comes crashing into the room. The link hasn’t shifted at all, which means Harry was going for a scare.

“Really?” Niall asks.

“Really.” Harry says, twirling over to drape zirself half over Liam, half over Niall. “Whatchu two talking bout, hm?”

“You.” Liam says honestly, then makes a sour face at himself.

“Really!” Harry says, biting at Liam’s ear.

Niall chuckles a bit, redirects by offering, “Yeah. Just saying we should get some fruit shoots, yunno.”

Harry literally claps. “Yes, bravo.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Niall rolls his hand for a bow.

Harry kisses at Niall’s hand as it comes near, then stops and looks considering. “I think they have atemoya shoots, too. You should get those for you.” Harry nudges him.

Niall quirks a smile. “Those take a lot of care, yunno.”

Liam digs his fingers into Niall’s sides. Niall squawks and bats at him. “You can do it. I believe in you.”

Niall’s cheeks grow warm. He ignores the overflow he’s sending into the link and forces a disdainful huff. “Yeah but then Harry’s gonna try and call them that weird earth thing. Some liquid.”

“Piña coladas! They taste just like ‘em. You’d love them if you’d just try them Ni, I swear.” Harry bounces, jostling all of them nearly into the plex. The ship curves the floor gently so they keep their balance. Niall sends it a thank you.

“I tried grasshoppers with you. No, Harry, I will not try piña coladas.” Niall pushes Harry back towards the doorway. Ze goes easily, too easily. Probably plotting something. Niall reminds himself to keep a look out.

“If you like pina coladas! And getting caught in wormholes!” Harry shimmies out the doorway. “If you’re not into yoooooga –“

Liam and Niall follow behind, at a less human volume.

“The greatest question in the entire universe is really, ‘How is Barry actually from Earth’s 1900s era?’” Liam shakes his head, taking Niall’s hand and swinging it back and forth.

“Don’t I know it, Leemo.”

Niall closes the panel behind them, with one last look at the open space. It’s darkening, going back to that ever present emptiness Niall can’t quite put his finger on. _Soon,_ he thinks at it, for some reason.

 

\--

 

Niall bounces in place, keeping a firm hold on Harry’s shirt. Harry’s swaying in place. Both of them are feeding off each other’s’ energies. They usually do, at ports, the only ones who still get excited over first steps.

“- and then we reconvene at 32:00 local time. Everyone –“

“Reconvene? Are you profeshing it up today, Tommo?” Liam raises his eyebrows.

“Excuse me, Officer Payne.” Louis snaps, hands on his hips. “Are you the _Captain_ of this vessel? Kindly shove off or we’ll be forced to have you thrown off the ship, thank you.” Louis pinches Liam’s nipple viciously.

Niall winces but Liam just half-heartedly bats him off, a pleased smile rounding his cheeks.

They’re in the loading dock, awaiting the ship’s okay to head on out. Harry, shaky but determined with Zayn handling all the technical contact with the dock, had done well enough on landing to earn kisses from all of them. Now, they’re gathered waiting for the main doors to open so they can head up through the natural tunnels to surface. Docks for their grade organics put them down in nest-like ground caverns for refueling, whodda thunk.

“Niall!”

Niall freezes fast enough to tug Harry to a standstill.

“Hey,” Harry protests. Niall presses a hand under zir’s shirt, conciliatory.

“Did I miss something, Lou?” Niall asks, thinking back over the brief and frowning. His job’s the same, just a little more keeping track of Harry.

“Yes.” Louis says, pulling Niall close. “Your job is vital here and we could not do this without you. We love you.”

The bloodrush to Niall’s face leaves him a little woozy. Or that could be all the focused love Louis is pitching at him. “Stop,” he says, breathless.

Louis boops his nose. “Never.” And then whirls off to catch up with Zayn and Liam who have already started out the door.

Niall watches him walk away, trying to get his body to calm down. It doesn’t help that the ship is twittering excitedly. Probably, it’s already started exploring the planet’s connections.

The back of Harry’s hand presses against Niall’s overheated cheek. “Cool,” ze says. “Should do that more often.”

Niall bats zir hands away, bites his lip against his smile.

“Enough, enough. Let’s find some plants, do some ambassador shit.” The ship gives a few yellow bubbles, chirping agreement.

“Ambassadorship.” Harry corrects.

“No, Harry, we’re the ambassadors, not the ship. We’re doing the shi –“ Harry tackles him. Niall cackles and makes sure he twists enough to fall on top of Harry.

 

\--

 

V-7 is a little like how Niall imagines early explorers might have hoped other worlds would be. It redefines thriving, pushes lush to the limit.

Everything is in shades of green and brown and raw energy. Buildings formed out of mountains and trees that talk to one another, curl lovingly around one another and arc high enough up into the sky Niall can’t see the end of them. Naturally occurring metals have coalesced together to build bridges and winding pathways across liquid pathways, water, nitrogen, potassium. Light species flitter from place to place, making everything shift and sway. It’s all alive and close quarters on more dimensions than even Niall can see. There’s a constant hum from the planet underneath all the different languages from travelers. It’s snug, but not in an uncomfortable way. More like how all of them fit on the couch in the gallery.

It takes Niall’s breath away and then gives it back gently.

“No wonder you people wanted to keep this place for themselves,” Niall says, nudging Harry’s side, because V-7 has had a long history of vying for its own independence as a cognizant collective.

“I don’t think we wanted to keep it _for ourselves,_ ” Harry demurs.

Niall shrugs. He doesn’t care one way or another about humans that aren’t Harry or Zayn and Harry’s sociopolitics are best left untouched.

“C’mon.” He tugs.

They hold on tight to each other and get lost in the in-between shops of the lower levels, just above the ports. There’s so many different kinds. Shops that spill into the places they walk, but don’t interrupt their steps. Shops that are loud and buoyant and floating by. Shops that zig-zag through spaces, never in one place too long, moving through the levels of trees.

Harry stops every few seconds to look at something, to ask someone about their wares. Niall tucks himself firm to zir back after the third full stop in under 3 minutes. “Forget to get something for Gemma?”

Harry flicks zir fingers back at him. Niall laughs loud enough to have people around them echoing it.

Harry’s hands go to pinch his thigh. “Don’t be flamboyant, Niall.”

“S’no, fun. You get to be flamboyant.” Niall pouts, but tries to get his wings to calm down so he doesn’t actually fly off in happiness. It’s only happened once, but once is enough when ribbing, awful crewmates like his are concerned.

“Yes, well.” Harry sticks zir nose in the air, “I don’t actually 99 balloon myself when I am.”

Niall stares for a moment, but Harry just smiles serenely at him. Right. “Congrats Harry,” he says. “That sentence made no sense to anyone but you.”

There’s a heavy put-upon sigh for a second before Harry bites at Niall’s nose. Niall darts out of the way and winds his way down the shops towards some of the larger mountain zones. They’ll have less free-zone-come-as-you-are trade.

 _Trees._ Niall hops happily up onto the edge of the nitrofront, to hear the splash of the waves below like a loving bassline under the chords of the market.

Harry pings him just as he’s getting ready to ask a vine if he can go up to level 12.

 _Hm?_ He’s not worried. The link’s been coasting their whole meandering trip.

 _Hey, I’m gonna go hook up with Zayn, okay._ Harry’s voice sounds cheerful, but there’s something about the undertow that doesn’t sit right.

Niall frowns, says an _excuse me_ to the vine to turn off the main street a bit and close his eyes. He runs over the lines and edges of the link. But no, nothing feels out of place. He opens his eyes to see the alleyway corridors rapidly growing bright lunar lilies.

_Z okay? You need me to come back?_

_Yeah, yeah. All good! Tip top shape. Louis’ll find you!_ Harry pops out.

Niall watches the lilies for a few seconds, remembers the twist of Zayn’s face saying _I don’t wanna talk about it._ He breathes deep and lets it go. They don’t omit things from each other without a purpose. Zayn has his reasons and so does Harry.

A lily brushes against his cheek and Niall giggles. Lunars are his favorite. Probably something the planet knows instinctively. Niall’s a little envious. He kisses the corner of the petal and watches the flower and all its surrounding siblings curl around each other happily. Their textures are amazing. They’re fleshier than Harry and more sensitive than Liam.

Niall shakes his head a bit and curls the edges of this moment secure in his memories. After a second more of smiling at absolutely nothing, he goes back to ask the vine for a ride again.

 

\--

 

He and Louis park it on one of the long seating platforms outside their assigned dock. They’re both a little worn from bringing in the tree shoots and the supplies Louis had picked up too, but not as bad as they could be. The ship was eager to help, delighted lines of yellow-pink running grid after grid up and over to position containers easy and efficient.

Niall’d sent it a fair few kiss emojis just to watch it go a deeper peach and vibrate happily.

Now they’re lazing a bit though, watching the mountains in the distance slowly, slowly sway with each other.

“It looks good,” Louis says, nodding at the ship looming large in front of them.

Niall looks it over for a minute. It looks a little like an upside down shell. He knows it’s based on Earth’s Jellyfish designs, the trailing, protective and navigational stingers, the strong, supple hull of a body. He knows the blueprints of every level. He knows the smell of the gallery when he’s just finished baking and the sound of everyone’s different feet on the grid floor coming to steal some. He just doesn’t know if he knows it, yet.

 _Yeah, but does anyone ever?_ He asks himself, tapping absently on Louis’ thighs slung over his own. _Maybe your own standards are too high. Hm._

Louis taps back on his wrists. “Banana bunch is about headed back. They just need a clearance sig from the captains. Liam’s near here, though. You okay on your own, if I go?”

Niall waves a hand lazily.

Louis kisses him and starts to untangle. There’s a slight shuffle from behind Louis and they both tip back to look for it.

One of the little ones, an outer Pleiades species stands there, upper shoulders cocked curiously. They’ve only got two sets right now. Young, then. Niall smiles. He doesn’t mind little ones, has always wondered what all of their hazy expanse looks like to someone who can’t see cross-dimensionally. But everyone’s always quiet about them.

Louis raises an eyebrow at him. Niall shrugs back. He’s fine. Louis nods and clambers down. The little one drifts over, settles at a polite human distance from Niall. He waits. It would be impolite for him to speak first.

Louis begins moving away at a glacial pace, shamelessly listening in for anything good.

The little one asks Niall what his favorite color is.

Niall flushes preemptively, keeps his eyes on them and not on the blur of Louis in the corner of his eyes. "Green," he says, finally, smiling.

They look from Niall to Louis, who’s cackling too loud, skin a blurry bright lime, and then make an aha! face. They pat his hand, nodding. “Young love,” they say, struggling only a bit with the English. They get up to follow a bright colored hover vendor.

Louis laughs even louder behind Niall, finally moving off.

Niall flicks his fingers at him, opens a connection to send just a bite of virus at his stupidly smug face. He hides his smile in his own shoulder.

Niall hums for a bit, waiting. The suns here are nearly the same color as the sky, makes it hard to tell what local time is. He stands up so he can check the sky behind him. The platform is the same height as half the ship, so it overlooks the lowest level markets. Everything moves in sync like one sinuous being, like a perfect blend of species and cultures and planet. He sighs happily.

“Your ship’s a Cowell design,” a voice says, sickly sweet.

Niall jerks around and feels his dorsals fold down tight.

The speaker is a long form taller than Harry with sharp eyes and no mouth to speak of. They’re almost blindingly bright. Quadrant 5 class, then. Niall orders himself to calm down. They haven’t done anything bad, just been overly familiar.

“Yes.” He says, politely.

“Which means you’re that crew. The wonky one.” The form sways like they’re demonstrating the wonkiness.

Niall plasters the smile to his face. “Yes.”

“And you’d be that half-wake-angel, then.” Their voice has gone sharp and cloying.

Niall loses his smile somewhere.

The link beats a second before Niall feels a body press up against him.

“Who’s asking?” Liam says, cutting and distant.

Niall presses his hand back to Liam’s chest, turns the link as wide as it will go, forgoing a connection to put a kick behind his thought. _It’s fine. It’s. Fine._ he sends.

Liam grips Niall’s hand tight but doesn’t move away. The link squirms and shoves at their edges. _It’s not fine._

“A _synth_.” The voice tsks. “Disgusting. Don’t you know this is an organic port. Nothing,” it pauses to lean in a bit, “Unnatural allowed.”

Shock rolls down Niall’s spine, Liam a frozen line against his back. Niall hasn’t heard the word synth since it was declared hate speech 6 revolutions ago.

Niall opens his mouth, to say fuck knows what – probably something that will get them kicked off this port for the next thousand revolutions – when Louis walks up beside them, pulls back his arm and decks the form flat. The link makes a near audible pop, like it’s celebrating. The port bots give beeps like they are definitely not celebrating, rushing to help the flailing form.

Niall blinks. Behind him, Liam jerks and hisses, “Louis.”

Louis spins around, his vicious grin fading. “If you tell me I shouldnt’ve, I swear I’ll –“

“I wanted to do that.” Liam cuts over Louis.

“Oh, honestly.” Niall says, ignores the way his cheeks are flushing in pleasure. The back of his head sits warm and cozy like their own personal heating pads.

Louis beams at Liam. “Aw, love.” He leans around Niall to stick his tongue in Liam’s mouth. Liam grabs back at Louis’ hip hard, bites back, more than enthusiastic. It makes Louis moan loud enough to get the attention of some of the bots, who plip aggravated at them, and some of the other dockers, who look interested but not bothered.

“Honestly,” Niall says again. Kissing isn’t exactly faux-pas on V-7, but Niall’s pretty sure public sex isn’t social convention.

A familiar arm wraps carefully around Niall’s waist, making sure to not dislodge Niall’s place against Liam.

“Everywhere we go, everywhere we go,” Zayn sings, laughing into Niall’s ear.

Niall gives up on not giggling. “People wanna know, people wanna know.”

Zayn runs his finger along the curve of Niall’s primary dorsal lightly. It makes him shiver with pleasure. He digs his elbow into Zayn’s side. Grinning back, Zayn pulls away, saying, “I’ll tell Harry ze’s on cleanup duty.”

“Kay,” Niall says, watching Zayn do a weird half-skip away.

When Niall turns back, Louis looks like he’s threatening to hop up into Liam’s arms.

“Oi! None of that. Stop.” Niall pushes his hands in between the two of them. The bots are still around, even though the form has slinked off when Niall wasn’t looking. People are watching them enough as it is.

“Sorry, Niall. You’re right.” Louis says. Niall raises an eyebrow. Too easy. “Are you okay? C’mere.”

Louis pulls him in and kisses him firm, one hand cupping the hands Niall has in between him and Liam. He tickles Niall’s wrists.

“Stop –“ Niall laughs against Louis’ lips.

“You’re right. Liam?” Louis says, pulling back from the kiss, offering Niall’s wrists ridiculously to Liam.

“Thanks, yeah.” Liam says, wrapping his hand around Niall’s wrist and tugging him in to also kiss him.

Niall tries not to grin so hard he can’t kiss back, but it’s a challenge. Idiots, the lot of them. Niall turns his wrist so he can free it to run his fingers down Liam’s chest and under his shirt. Liam rumbles. Niall digs his fingers in enough to get a gasp and then draws back.

“Are _you_ okay though?” Niall asks, pressing his palm flat against Liam’s hip. Louis’ hand joins his on Liam’s tummy.

Liam rolls his eyes. “I’m fine. Would’ve been okay even if Louis hadn’t decked ‘em.”

“Hey, you said!” Louis protests, digging at Liam’s tummy.

Incredible. He breaks up the squabble, saying, “Y’all are definitely gonna get us kicked off. You notice my first reaction wasn’t violence?”

Louis turns to octopus his arms around Niall while Liam presses a kiss to Niall’s temple. “This would be why you’re the relations officer, Ni.”

Niall pinches both of them, but doesn’t push them away.

 

\--

 

They don’t get banned from V-7, but it’s mostly because Harry convinces some of the head port bots that they’re just a fiercely sympathy-worthy band of miscreants deeply defensive of each other. Apparently, V-7 is very empathetic to those kinds of things because -

“It’s just one huge collective that protects itself intensely.” Harry gesticulates. “And, and, and!”

Niall drops his chin to his hand. “It’s a metaphor for us, we get it. Witty.”

“I wasn’t finished, Niall,” Harry says, petulant as can be.

Niall rolls his eyes up, tells himself to not be a dick. He’s a little testy.

They’re all in the bay, unpacking and organizing things out, running last system check before they head off. Niall, however, is plopped on a grid with an assortment of things they’ve dropped on his head as they pass. His knee is clicking strangely. Something to do with the local gravity, Zayn’d said, eyes a little distant looking Niall over. But they need to head out and Zayn hasn’t got time for a full check-up while he’s running atmo checks.

So, here he is.

It’s – “Booooooring.” Niall flings himself dramatically on the floor, careful not to brush his knee on anything.

“Jeeze, you’re a right stroppy lil thing, aren’t you.”

Niall peaks open his eyes to see Louis standing, hip cocked and arms crossed, over him. He’s got crinkles by his eyes, though, so Niall isn’t too worried. He gives Louis his best pathetic look.

Louis’ lip twitches but he doesn’t give in. “Why don’t you start on the arrangement for the arboretum? I know you’ve already started planning.”

He has, but. “You do realize we’re in the dock, right, Lou? Like, you didn’t hit yourself when you decked that Quadrant 5, right?”

Louis flicks a zing of energy at him that goes straight to his elbow. Niall laughs even as it throbs with pain for a second.

“I mean, tell the ship what to do, you potted pea.” Louis says, something in his voice that makes Niall sit up and frown. It’s not bad but.

Niall tests out the link. It’s sharp on Louis’ end like he’s cut it off from something. He doesn’t bother pushing at it; Louis’ the best at divisioning it.

“I can try?” he offers. He doesn’t know if he’ll succeed. Orchards are a little complex because they go from both a design and a growth side, but without the organic collective mindset. Ships usually can’t get that they won’t integrate with the trees themselves.

Louis nods at him. “You’re a bright, bright object in space.”

“I know.” Niall shrugs and lets it go when his cheeks flush.

Louis wanders off, cackling. The line of his shoulders remains just a little bit off though.

Hm, Niall thinks and then buckles down to talk with the ship about what it can and can’t do. It lights up underneath him, a happy patch of bright pink that makes Liam smile as he walks by.

Niall draws out the designs on the grid in between his legs. By the time he’s on the third row, the ship is anticipating the format, already lining in the rest of the plots, pausing just a bit to make sure it’s okay.

The air in his body feels a little loose.

 _Yeah, that’s right,_ Niall thinks.

The ship continues on, a little faster.

 

\--

 

Zayn pulls him down for a checkup the second they complete the launch. It went good, with both Harry and the ship blabbering excitedly at the feeling of liftoff, but Niall’s knee is still sorta clicking and they’re all a little tense about it.

Niall kicks his legs a bit from where Zayn has them slung over his arm. Zayn’s got a good carry, almost Liam material. He rests his head against Zayn’s shoulder and sighs.

The bay lights up in welcome as Zayn eases in and plops down Niall on the counter he’s dubbed his own. Zayn sterilizes his hands while looking down at Niall’s knees.

Niall half-smiles up at Zayn. He rubs his palms on his bottoms a little nervously. This could just mean a whole week of sitting around, but it feels bigger, not physically, but like in himself. He wants to be okay. He wants to not be back in a sick bay bed.

Zayn wraps his hand around Niall’s ankle. He hadn’t noticed he was kicking it.

“I’m just gonna use my own sensors to check it, Niall, okay.” Zayn ducks down to look Niall in the eyes. “No probes or tools, I promise, alright?”

Niall swallows hard and nods. “’Kay,” he rasps.

Zayn grabs a grid stool and eases down in front of Niall. The tattoo mods in his hands light up as Niall watches. Positioned precisely against Niall’s knee, they look like schematics, like blueprints of health. He looks away and focuses on breathing.

Interminable time passes.

Eventually, Zayn tucks one hand behind Niall’s knee, friendly like, and leans back. He doesn’t look overly worried.

Niall throws him a shaky look.

Zayn rubs his thigh. “You seem okay. There’s nothing really wrong that I can tell without doing anything more -” Zayn cuts himself off.

_Invasive._

Niall breathes in sharp.

Zayn looks him over one more time, then stands and pushes the stool back down. “I’m gonna let you go, if you don’t feel like you need to have anything done to it,” he says, leaning against the table next to Niall. “But you need to be honest with me, are you in pain?”

“I’m not –“ Niall takes a deep breath. “I’m a little more aware of it right now, but it doesn’t hurt, I promise.”

Zayn nods. “Okay. Could just be the silicon’s having a bad day.”

Niall wrinkles his nose. Ew. “Don’t say that about shit that’s in my body, Zayn, c’mon.”

Zayn laughs like a holo character, all body folds and heart eyes. Niall kisses his cheek for it.

“Toodles,” he says, before Zayn changes his mind. Sick bays are only bearable with Zayn and even then, when there’s threat of actual medical stuff, they’re not very bearable.

He nearly runs into Louis coming in the door as he leaves.

“Oops.”

Louis taps his chin. “Silly, silly. Next time you touch your Captain so familiarly, I’ll have you thrown in the brig.”

Niall aims a kick at his shin while Zayn oohs in the background.

“How’s this peach doing, hm?” Louis asks, going in to settle down on the bed, despite the look Zayn throws him.

Niall catches Zayn’s eyes, throws a thumb back to the door. Zayn makes a _yeah_ gesture but then inclines his head, pointedly pushes for a second at Niall in the link.

Niall bites his lip but eases out the door. He dims his side of the link and mimes shh to the ship. The colors dim to a soft purple.

There’s silence from the bay for a long minute before Zayn gets louder.

“Louis, it is not your fault. It’s not your fault. It is no – “

“Shut up, Zayn,” Louis says, wrecked. “Just shut – you don’t know anything.”

Zayn makes a small sound. “I know you.”

There’s silence for a long moment.

“I know Niall, too, Louis. And so do you.” Zayn says, in that drawling way he does when he’s thinking on something really hard. “He’s done amazingly. You can’t take that away from him. That’s part of the deal.”

Niall presses against the wall and breathes unsteadily, his dorsals locked against his back. He never – he never knew Louis thought about the accident that way. _What a shit,_ Niall thinks for a moment, before his anger goes syrupy and sad. Louis, thinking it was all his fault Niall was just in the path of a damaged support line.

“I’m trying,” Louis says, plaintive.

“Try _with_ him,” Zayn says, almost soft enough Niall misses it. He closes his eyes.

There’s a long silence and then a sound much closer. Niall blinks open his eyes to find Louis standing in front of him.

“Hey,” Louis says, cold.

Niall thinks about closing his eyes again. “Hey.”

“So. You heard all that.” Louis kicks at the floor a bit.

“You’ve never had a problem with any of us listening in before, Lou,” Niall reminds him. “Zayn said it would be okay, too.”

“Yeah, well –“

“Would you have ever told me?” Niall cuts in, because what the fuck.

“Probably not, no.” Louis holds his chin in the air like that will save him, snippy to the last.

“Why not?” Niall asks, because apparently he’s a glutton for pain. Because there can really only be one answer to that and it’s – _‘I didn’t trust you , Niall. Didn’t wanna worry your pretty head.’_

Zayn comes up behind Louis and puts a hand on his mouth. "Think, then speak."

Louis looks mutinous.

Zayn shakes his head and whispers something in one of the Andromedian dialects. None of which are within Niall's repertoire. Great. Exiled from his own conversation.

Louis slowly deflates. Zayn removes his hand a bit so Louis can whisper something back, ending with a questioning lilt.

Niall taps his fingers against his thigh so he doesn't start biting at them.

Zayn answers back gently and gives Louis a kiss on the head as he steps around him to continue down the hall. He pats Niall's tummy as he passes by, giving Niall's questioning look a small smile, tucks a pocket of warmth into the link for him.

When Niall looks back to Louis, he's got his hands on his hips and is heaving a sigh.

"Apparently," he says. "I'm being a right booger."

The knot in Niall's stomach relaxes a bit. "True. That the word Zayn used?"

"No." Louis says. He doesn't elaborate.

Niall grins a little bit, eases to lean against the wall and doesn't press the issue. Zayn'll tell him if he asks, later.

Louis narrows his eyes like he knows. Niall shrugs in response.

“Do you wanna make the trial thing a not-trial thing?” Louis asks, blunt, cheeks a bright pure green.

Niall starts a bit. His wings shift through a few dimensions before he can open his mouth enough to say, “Yes.”

“Okay.” Louis relaxes into Niall’s space, pulls himself down from that overwhelming way he has of occupying space sometimes, when he’s frustrated and cares too hard about something. He comes close enough to wrap Niall in his arms and then opens a connection to nudge. _I was scared you would tell me I was an idiot, that of course,_ Captain, _it was my fault._

Niall clings harder to Louis than he may have clung to anything.

“You’re an idiot. Of course, I _don’t_ blame you.” Niall mumbles into the collar of Louis’ jumpsuit, watching the ship swirl underneath their feet, sparks of colors like tiny explosions of happiness for them. Silly. “Stop being a prat.”

Louis’ laugh rumbles through Niall’s bones like all the best laughs do.

 

\--

 

Finally, they unpack everything and get it sorted away, the ship helping where it can and providing humming support where it can’t. Even with Harry and occasionally Louis complaining they’ll never be done, ever, they finish.

“We can’t ever go back or we’ll have to unpack the rest of our lives,” Harry says, flopped down on the gallery island.

They’re having celebratory shakes and watching a drama holo that Liam and Zayn have bet will make either Louis or Niall cry. Niall thinks it’s a little unfair to pick on people with more tear ducts but, they’re probably right.

“Sure –“ Niall starts.

“Maybe we’re going about it wrong, yunno.” Liam says, out of nowhere.

“Going about what wrong? The unloading?” Harry dips zir head over the side of the island, slurping at zir protein shake.

“Integration.” Liam sounds giddy, for some reason.

Louis rolls his eyes, but otherwise doesn’t move from his spot draped over Niall and Zayn. Niall peaks over the edge of his shoulder at Liam. “Whaddya mean?”

“I mean like, we always thought like – we had to connect to an organic via comm or individual links right? But why wouldn’t we just, like, align a ship link –“

_With ours._

All at once, clarity washes through the link. Niall sits straight up, jostling Zayn who’s opened his eyes like he was never asleep. Harry and Louis freeze, mid throwing a holoball. It coasts along for a second until it bumps into Liam’s arm .

“Shit.” Niall breathes.

“Oh my god,” Louis says, digging his fingers into his eyes. “We’re so fucking stupid.”

“No, we’re –“ Niall’s mind races. Would that even work. It’s literally unheard of. “How did you even think of that, Liam?”

Zayn’s pulling on Niall’s arm so he’ll let him up to mess with something on the table. Niall leans forward against the back of the couch and watches Harry spin fast on the island, a serious frown on zir face.

“I’unno. It’s just.” Liam fumbles a bit.

Harry stops spinning to sit up, says slowly and carefully. “We’re not really good at the halfway thing, yunno. All or nothing. We wanna know the ship in order to feel comfortable, and we can’t feel comfortable till we know the ship. But _knowing_ the ship for us is…” Harry drifts off, rolling a hand.

They’re all nodding even before Zayn says, “Different than everyone else’s knowing.”

Niall bops his fist on the back of the couch repeatedly. His muscles feel achy with the excitement from everyone.

Louis kicks the seat cushions like he’s feeling the same thing. “Why, on Zayn’s ridiculous hair, did we not think of this earlier.” He says, stroppy at the edges even as he bounces the link with his enthusiasm. Good old Louis, Niall thinks at him fondly.

Zayn snorts, taps at the holo he’s messing with like he’s checking on something. “I don’t think we were all sure until recently, you know?”

“Sure of what?” Liam asks, a little flushed all over from all the happiness and pride being directly at him. Niall doesn’t even go here, but it looks edible. He may push them together after this, shove them all in a bed, just to watch.

“That we wanted to keep the ship.” Zayn says, simply.

Niall looks at the side of Zayn’s face and thinks of waking up to the ship humming at him, thinks of the ship being cautious and careful with them, he thinks of how it could be so angry and frustrated – a happy demeanor isn’t built in – but it isn’t, it’s also so kind. It’s always beautiful. It’s always _real_.

Niall continues Zayn’s thought, quietly, “That the ship isn’t just a ship, it’s _our_ ship.”

“So it makes sense.” Zayn finishes, quiet as well.

The silence is so deafening, even the link goes quiet for a moment. Niall watches all of them one by one, watches the way they backtrack through all of their experiences and interactions. Eventually, the link begins building with the force of something he can’t quite name.

“I don’t think anyone in the universe would say this makes sense.” Louis laughs a bit strangled, staring up at the ceiling where the ship is curling at the edges like it’s trying to understand why they're talking about it so much, curious where they’re all about to fly off to.

Zayn shrugs, but he’s jostling Niall where he’s bouncing in place.

“Vote,” Harry says, falling forward off the island. “Vote, vote, vote.”

They vote.

 

\--

 

It’s not that simple, of course, because nothing in their lives ever is.

“Why the hell can’t we?” Louis asks, sounding sharp enough to cut the connection in half.

All of them are crowded around Louis in his office. The check that Zayn had been running earlier was whether the head grower back at the base, where the ship was developed, was available for a holo. Paul’s been sighing at them for what he tiredly refers to as “too fucking long, by half.” He’s usually right on their side.

It’s stinging a little that he’s a little reluctant. Niall tucks himself under Liam’s arm and links their hands together, Liam kissing the top of his head.

Paul looks unimpressed but his mouth is turned down a bit sadly. “It doesn’t work like that, Lou. It was developed to grow pieced. Separate. One person, one system with redundancies. Hence, links, which we don’t often recommend, and comms.” He says, tempering.

“That’s absolute moon manure.” Louis says, smiling pleasantly.

Niall grips Liam’s hand tighter, can’t help a little grin in the face of Louis’ anger.

“C’mon. It’s been a stretch just getting field offices to agree any kind of neural bonding like y’all’ve got is _legal_ , you know that. Let alone a simultaneous five-way lock? You’d never get it past the seeders, first.” Paul says, crossing his arms.

Fucking seeders, Niall thinks. Grow one ship and they think they’re a god. The ships do all the work.

“It was completely fine before.” Louis says, still a biting polite.

Paul rolls his eyes. “Things are different now.”

“I know they shitting are. We helped make ‘em that way. We fucking pioneered the whole fucking process.” Louis says, voice growing louder and far less within the realms of professional. Zayn wraps his hands carefully around Louis’ neck, sending calm down the link like a good cuppa.

Liam adds, smiling, “still get holomails every day, people asking for advice on linking up –“

“I know, I know.” Paul smiles sadly. “But that was spontaneous. None of the safeguards that we have now were even thought of then. Y’all are lucky y’all never did more damage from the very launch, really.” He says the last bit softly, like it hurts him to say it.

Niall grits his teeth and thinks,  _Not as much as it hurts us to hear you say it._

“Right. Because _protecting_ people like us is what the safeguards are about.” Louis snaps and slams off the connection.

There’s silence in the room for a long moment. Niall knows they’re all thinking of the same thing, can feel the sickly memories rolling through the link like plasma slime down the back of his neck: Newsfeeds after newsfeeds running track after track on ‘New and Strange “Linked” Contract Crew Emerges. A Danger?’ People they’d each known for ages suddenly wanting pictures, wanting distance, wanting reassurance they didn’t _intend_ anything with their friendship.

When people ask them about the odd shape of their crew they always say they’re all they have.  People laugh and it’s a sweet moment, a moment people decide to trust them. Shame it’s such a sour truth, Niall thinks.

Niall tunes back in to see everyone already in motion.

Zayn is holding his shuttle 1 tat against Louis’ matching one, letting his lower heart beat sync down Louis’, while Harry leans over Louis’ shoulder, mumbling low and fast.

Liam’s hand has gone cold like it always does when he’s drawn inwards to run a complex code. Niall squeezes his unresponsive hand and gently maneuvers his body to tuck against Louis’, the chair growing to hold them both. Louis doesn’t mind the cold, plus the both of them will wanna get started immediately, now that they’ve decided to say fuck all to all the regulations.

Sure enough, the moment Zayn lets go of Louis, apparently satisfied he’s not going to combust, Louis slots himself against Liam, pressing the whole of his wrist ports to the back of Liam’s head. The connection Louis opens between them is large enough to nudge against the edges of the link, sharp and intense.

“Ow.” Harry hisses, rubbing zir temple.

“Shush.” Niall says, but thinks  _same_ in the safety of his head. He keeps away from the link half to avoid the sparks and half to avoid interfering with what Louis and Liam are doing including it.

“Think we should mute?” He asks.

“Hm.” Harry hums, tripping around the chair to Niall’s side, so ze can lace their fingers. Niall squeezes back.

“No,” Zayn says, a little shaky. “Wouldn’t do much good would it? S’mute, not an off.”

The ship rumbles quietly around them at something that makes Louis’ face go sour.

“Hey,” Niall says, tugging at Zayn. “You okay, Z?”

“Yeah, fine.” Zayn keeps his eyes on Liam and Louis, intense.

Niall cocks an eyebrow. Zayn’s the medic, but he’s also literally inside the heads of these patients. And he knows exactly what they’re doing, in theory at least. There’s no need to stay focused, not when Zayn likes eye contact in a conversation. He nudges Harry, tilts his head a tiny bit towards Zayn. Harry shakes zir head.

Niall turns back to Zayn. “You know you don’t have to be okay, right.”

Zayn closes his eyes. He bites his lip.

The worry in Niall’s chest thrums up a notch. “Zay –“

“Someone has to monitor Louis and Liam while they try and recode an entire once-in-the-universe link to somehow match up with a ship’s connections.” Zayn says, apropos of nothing.

Niall blinks. “Yeah?” He wasn’t saying they should abandon them.

“I can monitor them, Zayn. Go.” Harry leans around Niall a bit to order Zayn.

Niall frowns at Harry, mouthing a sharp ‘what’. Harry doesn’t look away from Zayn. Niall’s starting to feel a little lost and he can’t mess with the link right now. _Lovely,_ he thinks.

Zayn takes a deep breath, looking back at Harry a little sympathetically. What the hell.

“But –“ Zayn starts.

“It has nothing to do with reliving the voices of every person who came to see us for weeks, telling me I’m a failure of a pilot, every time we dock, Zayn.” Harry says, snippy.

Niall exhales hard.

Harry amazes him sometimes. The sheer guts it takes to do what ze does a job, sure, but also the way ze lifts zir chin at Zayn right now. The way ze puts out the fact that ze’s in pain like it’s nothing to be ashamed of, like it’s just something to be let into the universe, and then healed.

Niall shakes his head a bit.

Zayn looks distraught.

“And I’m getting over that, Zayn.” Harry finishes, gently. “I’m talking to someone about it.”

 _Liam, fruit,_ Niall thinks. He feels affection bubbling over into the link, beyond his control. His breath comes a little quick. He shunts open a connection.

 _I love you,_ Niall sends at Harry, feeling desperate with it.  _I love you so much. I think you’re brilliant. I think you’re better and brighter than Regulus or Sirius or –_

Harry crashes into him, hard.

He clings back, fists his hands into zir curls. He breathes heavy into zir collar while Harry digs in zir fingers in his hips, sends back _I love yous_ and  _thank yous_ all jumbled together.

Zayn chuckles softly and they break apart. Harry presses a lingering kiss to Niall’s lips and then closes the connection to draw away and curl up in front of Louis and Liam. Ze gives Zayn one last pointed look.

Zayn sighs. “Okay, okay.” Zayn turns towards him. “Can we talk?”

Niall runs a finger along Zayn’s jaw gently, softens into him more than he could ever put into words. “Yeah, Zaynie, course.”

 

\--

 

They end up in Zayn’s room. Technically, Niall’s room is closer, but all of them are a little reluctant to enter Niall’s room. It’s not Niall’s fault he lives with a bunch of messy heathens. He _had_ to put in protective incinerating grid flooring to preserve the cleanliness, Niall reminds Zayn.

“Yeah, Ni.” Zayn nods like  _yeah fair point_ , “But it’s not really losing the clothes, as much as it is losing the soles of our feet, yunno.”

“I have a hammock.” Niall offers.

“You can incorporeally fly.” Zayn says, an almost smile curling across his lips.

“Not reeeally,” Niall draws out, just to see if he can get a full smile. He can, it turns out.

He grins at Zayn, discretely pats his own back.

Zayn taps open his door. “I saw that.” He gestures Niall in.

“Did not.” Niall tiptoes around the art strewn all over the floor, skirting the edges of the room. Niall almost expects the ship to make a few clips like it’s laughing. But, it’s silent. Niall bites at the inside of his cheek. _Please be gentle_ , he thinks at Liam and Louis.

“You could just like walk over it yunno.” Zayn says.

“Nah. Not really, yunno.” Niall says, settling on the bed in the corner.

Zayn has to clear off a few shirts in order to do the same. Niall refrains from saying anything. Their legs fit together like they always do, a little knobby but still comfortable.

“So,” Niall says.

“So,” Zayn says back.

“You first, bub.” Niall says, flicking at Zayn’s calf.

Zayn sighs and his shoulders come in like he’s decompressing his entire spine at once.

“I’ve been having trouble.” Zayn looks down and picks at his quilt. “With like the jumble of everything. All the noise of things I’m not familiar with.”

Niall knows Zayn was the one who made all the emergency notifications and talked with all the rescue workers. He knows Zayn was the one who stood watch over Niall and Liam and yelled back and forth with people who didn’t understand anything about the anatomy of a wake-angel or an auto. He knows people still go up to Zayn’s family and try to talk to them about Zayn. He rolls it over in his head for a moment, feeling vaguely nauseated. “Harry,” he says. “With taking over the ambassador stuff and the –” going to Zayn randomly on V-7.

“Yeah,” Zayn says. “I’ve just been. Needing more space.”

Hence the door on his room, too. Which Niall respected but just thought was a prank thing him and Louis were doing. Wouldn’t have been the first time.

Course, now they’re about to get rid of even more of that space. In theory, letting the ship fill it up.

Niall jolts, grabs onto Zayn’s leg.

“Are you – do you not feel comfortable with this, Zayn?” Niall begins opening connections, ready to tear the entire thing down before Liam and Louis even start.

Zayn places his hand on Niall’s arm and squeezes, gives him a c’mon look. Niall draws down the connections, grumbling a bit.

“I’m good with this, I promise. Right now, it feels disjointed, things separate and knocking against each other.” Zayn makes a slicing gesture between his comm implant and everything else. “I think this’ll help. Will make everything, everyone flow in one space.”

Niall looks at the complex lines Zayn’s painstakingly drawn on the floor. They’re intricate and intertwining and he can’t separate one from another. But when you focus on one part, pictures come into view, shapes and cities and their own faces. _Yeah_ , he thinks.

“I may just may need more time off-ship. Not on a port.” Zayn says, not meeting Niall’s eyes.

Oh.

“You mean planet drops,” Niall says, cautious. “With me?” Niall rubs his hands along Zayn’s bony knees.

Zayn doesn’t say anything, ducks his chin into his chest.

“Cause that would be fine, Z. More than fine,” Niall says, intent. He never meant to exclude any of them, it just always seemed to work the way they had it. Give Niall some time to relax in some radiation, give the rest of them some time to relax in bed. He doesn’t mind changing it at all.

Zayn sneaks a glance up through his impossible eyelashes.

“Really, really,” Niall says, bobbing his head at Zayn, over dramatic, but not untrue.

Zayn cracks a tiny smile. Niall lifts his hands, giving Zayn a second to pull back, before he pushes at the corners of his mouth.

Zayn tries manfully to resist for a few seconds before he breaks and bites at Niall’s fingers. Giggling back, Niall wiggles them enticingly.

The bed bounces a bit when Zayn tips them both over to lay down, like he needs the support. His spine goes lax and he puddles onto the mattress. Niall kisses his shoulder softly, resisting the urge to sigh. Sometimes Zayn keeps things bottled so tight he wonders how he doesn’t explode when they poke him.

“So, we have to take the comm implant out.” Zayn says, coming up on one elbow.

Niall freezes up.

He knows it’s important. They have to make way for building on the link; the comm would confuse everything, too many connections to the same things. But, he’s really not looking forward to being in the bay for medical shit, again. He just got out.

“Hey,” Zayn coos, tipping Niall’s head against his for a second. “We can do it in my ensuite, I know you don’t wanna be in the bay.”

The tightness in his chest releases. “Okay. Thank you.” _Sorry._

“It’s fine, Ni. I have an ensuite for a reason, yunno.” Zayn tweaks his nipple.

Niall shakes his head. Sometimes he thinks Zayn’s just a few levels short of a precog. The amount of times he’s known how to handle things, before they even happen.

Zayn’s grinning at him. Niall smiles back, reflexive.

“I’m not,” Zayn says, inclining his head, picking up what Niall’s thinking. “But it would be cool, wouldn’t it?”

“It would be wicked, dude.”

 

\--

 

Niall wanders around Liam the few rotations after the implant gets taken out. Liam’s the only one of all of them without the implant, connections in his very microtissue and all, so he’s not feeling the same emptiness Niall is, but he is always busy. And that fills up a lot of Niall’s time that could be spent wandering aimlessly.

He hadn’t realized he’d grown so used to talking with the ship. Or the ship’s colors. Niall eyes the grid below him; it’s a near empty blue. Liam nudges him and he smiles back.

They’re in the engine room, which is mostly just a vast tank of connective liquid the engine can free flow around in. It’s a lot larger than their last engine, course, so is the ship, but. Niall keeps his distance anyway.

Liam’s fixing to head on in and run a few laps of diagnostics with the engine. He leaves Niall with his clothes and a kiss and hauls himself up to the edge of the tank, not bothering with the rising platform.

“It looking okay?” Liam asks, messing with the tank settings.

Niall glances down at the holo in front of him. “Yeah. Little higher activity than normal, but you know.”

“Probably gonna be our new normal, starshine.” Louis says, plopping down next to Niall.

He jumps a little bit. The link is a little unresponsive right now. Quiet like it’s mulling over the changes Louis and Liam have done to it.

“Hm,” Niall hums.

They haven’t really avoided talking about the potentials for their new connection with the ship, but they haven’t exactly talked about it either. Niall’d just jerked while doing some language systems upkeep a bit back and there was something different about the link, something wider and more spacey than all five of them could fill. Niall bites his lip and goes back to watching Liam.

He’s drops down into the pool. Immediately, he comes back up gasping, clutching at the edges of the tank.

“Liam!” Niall’s half way to standing, with Louis already on his feet.

“No, fuck, no I’m okay just-“ Liam says, shaky. The engine is nudging at him gently. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He reaches down to pat it. “Just shocked me.”

“What did?” Louis asks, sharp.

Niall hovers over the control holo uneasily.

“The energy, it’s like.” Liam says, wonder in his eyes. He kicks his feet a little bit. “It’s everywhere, it feels so good. Feels like the link, when we’re all touching, a bit.”

Louis laughs a little breathlessly. Niall shakes his head and pushes back at the link’s delayed reaction, the very vague questions from Harry and Zayn.

“Y’all should try this, it’s brilliant.” Liam coaxes, doing a little spin around the engine.

“Yeah, right, Li. We’ll just hop in there shall we?” Louis shakes out his shoulders and comes back to sit half on Niall.

Niall doesn’t bother pushing him off. Louis’ comfy at any rate. His new jumpsuit is a soft worn suppex blend. The cuffs are nice and easy under Niall’s fingers. He holds on to Louis’ wrists enough to catch the uptick still in his heart rate. Louis exhales, controlled to avoid the shake Niall can see at the edges of his muscles. He tucks himself closer and lets Louis wrap around him like a solid, immovable shield against everything else.

Liam is still murmuring things, occasionally popping up from the tank.

They’re all tentative around the ship, right now. Trying to get it to respond to things, without pushing and without much luck. It’s drawn in, preoccupied with trying to sort things out. Harry’s got them running a straightway course because of it.

It’s a little funny, just a few weeks ago, it would have been the ship being this careful around them.

 _Oh, how the turntables,_ Niall thinks, laughing drily.

 

\--

 

“Hey, Haz,” Niall says, walking into the cockpit. “What did you –“

“Shhhhh,” Harry hisses, slapping a hand down on Niall’s mouth, and pulling him back against the wall.

They stand like that for a moment while Harry narrows zir eyes at the room. Niall rolls his eyes to look at Harry’s face and then rolls his eyes back down to the room. It looks the same as it normally does, maybe a little more blue than normal, because the ship’s still being fairly quiet.

“Mummumamur?” Niall asks.

“It’s different.” Harry whispers right into Niall’s ear. Niall jumps at the tickle and digs his elbow back. Fucking hell.

Harry eeps and finally draws zir hand away.

“What do you mean, it’s different?” Niall says, leaning back against Harry like ze’s a comfy chair.

“The connections feel different. Weird,” ze says, obliging Niall by tucking zir arms under Niall’s and pulling him back at an angle to not disturb the fold of his dorsals.

Niall looks at the chair and holo pads. “Weird bad?”

“Weird like May.” Ze says, dropping zir chin to Niall’s shoulder.

Niall furrows his brow a bit. “Isn’t that your favori –“

“Yeah,” Harry says, a little choked up. Ze presses zir forehead hard into Niall’s shoulder joint.

Niall wraps his fingers around Harry’s first two fingers and squeezes. “What’s it like?” he asks, quiet.

“Spring. Like apple pie on the counter and Mum calling ‘Come on home, Harry’ and waking up from a dream of all of y’all during the academy, red and flushed and ready and like the gentlest, most knowing connection I’ve ever felt, Ni – it’s –“ Ze gasps wetly.

“Shhh. Hey, hey, babe.” Niall lets go of Harry’s hands to turn around and hold zir close. Harry clings back, holds onto Niall’s secondaries like they’re comforting to the touch. Niall kisses Harry’s temple hard.

“Can you feel it, though?” Harry asks, shaky.

“Feel what?” Niall swipes at some of the tears on Harry’s nose.

Harry shakes zir head, reaches up to hold Niall’s wrist. Ze closes zir eyes and pushes at Niall in the link. Niall sighs but closes his eyes and follows. It’s a little weird. They don’t usually mentally move through it like this because it’s disorienting. Harry draws him in close, full of a lot of love and wonder and silliness like ze always is. Niall parses through it.

There.

In the newer, still numb parts of the link, is something small and supple, different than the feel of the rest of them, more like a flow than a fixed point. It’s not reaching out directly to any of them, but Harry’s right; it feels like it’s blooming.

Niall inhales sharply. Harry laughs at him, delighted.

 

\--

 

A few rotations later, Niall literally runs into Liam crouched on the floor, in one of the service hallways on the port side hanger. Niall’s wandering again. They’re almost at the farthest point in the ship you can get and still be actually _in_ the ship.

Liam steadies him with a hand. "Hey."

He looks back down at the edge of the hull, where a code line of green has burst strong and round, almost exactly like the curl just behind Harry’s left ear they all have a mild fascination with. It bridges the slight gap in the hull that fiber ware shows through. Reformations.

"Whatcha growing?" Niall can’t help his voice coming out harsh. This is what he was supposed to take over. And he has been. It’s why  _he’s_ this far out here. Can’t Liam trust -

But Liam shakes his head. "I didn't make this, Ni."

Niall stills, runs that over in his head a few times. "I didn't either, so. . ." He says, slowly.

"The ship's started growing its own, in our image." Liam says, quiet and near reverent, hand tracing the air over the design over and over.

Niall's knees lock up. "You think the link is changing the foundation of the ship."

Fuck.

Liam shrugs, but it's forced and there's too much brightness crammed into the corners of his eyes. When Niall looks down, his tattoo text is scrolling too fast to read.

Niall looks back at the hull. "Oh."

“It’s so cool.” Liam says, sounding giddy like he’s four revolutions younger and just discovering the Pegasus galaxy. Niall smiles small, feels a slice of the joy, but also nerves bubbling in his stomach.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s also unheard of. Organics have limits, Liam. Preset biological boundaries. Not like connective changes, but core?” He thinks about all the changing connections they’ve all been experiencing this past week.

The way Harry is constantly bouncing with happiness, the way Zayn’s been coming back from the medical bay with a smirk on his face, the cheers Louis lets loose every now and then. Not to mention, the curling warmth growing in the link. It’s turned into a touchstone, for them, he’s noticed. They all like to reach out to it, settle themselves.

They’re still not sure if it’s the ship itself or just the feel of all its organic connections, because the ship’s been silent the whole time. It’s starting to make them uneasy.

Liam’s face twists, he pulls back from the curl, chevrons dulling a little bit with the loss of energy. “I don’t know. I wish it would just yunno, tell us.”

Niall bites his lip, feeling bad for ruining this for him. “Sorr-“

“No, you’re right.” Liam says, rubbing at his chevrons.

Niall reaches out his hand to share a spark of energy between them. Liam laughs lightly at him, catches his hand. “C’mon, think we can still catch Zayn waking up from his nap.”

“Ooh. Live on the edge, Payno.” Niall says, swinging their hands back and forth as they head back down the hallway. He resists the urge to look back.

The ship’ll let them know what going on. They just need to give it time.

 

\--

 

The trees are a lot of work. It’s good though, makes Niall breathe hard and stretches his muscles. The layout the ship finished is excellent. He’s only halfway through, but already the arboretum feels like an entirely different space. He’s started taking his naps in here, making the others whine and come and find him eventually when he lays too long to watch the tree leaves against the backdrop of galaxies and planets.

This go-around, Niall is snipping at the edges of a particularly volatile babaco tree. He finishes with the first level and mutters “Good,” at the tree when it doesn’t hit him as he goes for the second level.

There’s an echo of something weird and soft and then a reedy, metallic-whisper of “Good?”

Niall drops the laser in his hand. “What.” He gasps, out loud. He’s at the edge of the room and there’s no one else in here.

“Good?” The whisper gets quieter and this time, Niall feels it in the link, like a petal pulled from the place they’ve all been hovering over and dropped softly onto him.  

It’s the ship.

Niall grabs at the tree truck to stay standing. “ _Yes_ ,” he says, desperate, hoping he hasn’t waited too long. “Yes. Yes, you’re good.”

He looks around at the grids that have been in muted colors for over a week, ever since the link-up, but there are no bursts of lines or color blooming.

“You’re so good, I promise,” he whispers, swallowing hard. “Please don’t go, again. Please.”

There’s no response. Niall clenches his eyes shut and leans heavily against the tree.

When he opens his eyes, there’s a small burst of pink exactly the shade of the perishas in the gallery.

“Good.” The ship says, flowing and lovely.

Niall sits down against the tree and lets himself cry. He lets himself curl over that area in the link that’s been aching and precious and too scared to stretch out to them. He lets himself reach out, finally, finally to the ship that’s been reaching out to them the whole time.

 

\--

 

Niall very politely waits until a full minute after Harry and Zayn have both come, before he slips into Harry’s room and throws himself on top of the bed.

They blink at him from upside down, mussed and still a little loopy.

“Hi, Ni.” Zayn says, laughing. Then, takes in the tear tracks on Niall’s skin and pulls himself stickily away from Harry. “Niall? Are you okay?”

“I –“ Niall says, and takes a deep breath. “The ship  _talks_.”

Harry stops licking zir hand. “What.”

Zayn freezes, half stretched across the bed.

“The link didn’t register –“

“Y’all were having sex,” Niall rolls his eyes. “Y’all never notice anything when you’re feeling each other up. Also like, the link goes all –“ Niall makes a vague, wispy happy gesture.

“Right.” Zayn says, looking fondly exasperated at the two of them. “So you like, had a conversation?”

“No, it just. It asked me if it was good.” Niall feels his eyes stinging again. “I just said yes.”  _Of course, of course you are_ , he sends at it.

There’s silence for a moment.

“Fuck,” Harry and Zayn whisper at the same time.

The link reverberates from it with enough to force to get two questioning plips from Liam and Louis messing around in the gallery. It sends the ship a little blue edged.

 _No, no, you’re good, you’re good, good good good._ Niall sends at it, wills it to just give them a second. The grid lines go a medium pink like an acknowledgement and a thank you all at once, and then fade to an unobtrusive purple. Niall blinks his eyes fast.

There’s two sets of footfalls at the entryway. “What’s going on?”

Zayn eases himself onto his back beside Niall as Harry shakes zir head heavily like ze’s trying to dislodge something.

“Me and Zayn have just had a blessed union under the stars. And Niall had one, too.” Ze says, but it’s lacking the usual gusto.

Liam and Louis look rightfully bewildered.

“What.” Louis says, narrowing his eyes.

Niall props himself up on his arms, only a little shaky. “The ship talks. It - it  _talked_. To me.”

Louis sort of sinks to the floor right where he is. “Oh.”

Liam presses his hand to his mouth. “Wow,” he says, sounding just as teary as Niall.

They all nod in agreement.

Niall sinks back down on the bed and lays there, looking at the bright splotches of the ceiling. The ship’s quiet still, here and in the link, like it knows they need a moment. But something deeper is happening anyway. They all stay quiet as they test it out; the spaces of the link finally blooming full and warm and infinitesimally vast. It’s like someone’s put thick, hot soup from home in his very bones. It’s like someone has said okay and welcome back and opened all the doors in his kitchen for him to smell the garden gently wafting in.

He closes his eyes and cries for the second time in an hour. The ship curls a soft peach around him, and hums gently.

 

\--

 

They’re about two hours out from Earth when they get the solar storm notice.

Niall’s in the gallery, with a sleepy Zayn, who isn’t really as sleepy as he’s letting a handsy Liam believe he is. Niall can see the curve of his smirk in his crossed arms from where he’s cutting fruit. He shakes his head, grinning.

The ship makes a small trill and then the holos light up with the coronal mass ejection alert, a brief display of the swirling mess playing a few times before fading out. Liam and Zayn look up at Niall.

“Huh,” Niall says and begins putting away his supplies.

Liam starts bouncing and drumming on Zayn’s back, who’s moved to playing a short humming game with the ship. Eventually, Zayn segues into a whine, “Niiiiiall, c’mooooon,” which the ship mimics too. All three of them tug at Niall in the link, a burst of silliness and warmth Niall tucks close.

Niall laughs. “Fine, fine. I’m ready, let’s go!”

They half-skip, half-walk to the bay, joining up with Harry and Louis somewhere on level 6. They’re both a little mussed and Louis looks particularly smug, so that explains what they were doing in the pilot room. Niall clicks his tongue at the two of them. Harry bites back at him.

They all stumble into the bay as one, a little ungainly trying to stay touching everywhere at once. The ship’s already cleared the outer doors and the plex as much as possible while leaving the dampening fields in place, and they can see a sea of stars and the stray gas cloud spinning by. Niall smiles at the sight; reflex. Liam says a thank you for all of them and they wander to the center of the floor.

Soon, they’ll enter the storm and the entire room will light up brilliantly, with enough energy to make Niall's bones shake. Storms are like a series of complex winds, wrapped up in layers and layers of magnetism. It's not necessarily rough for ships, but it can be a little overwhelming. They've found, though, that playing games with the light of solar storms is one of the ship’s favorite activities. And even before everything, it'd been one of their favorite ways to see space. The fit seems soft and important in Niall's head.

“Welcome almost home, Harry.” Liam says, swaying with zir.

Harry hums a polite thank you in the tone the ship uses when it really means  _no thank you_.

They laugh and it feels easy, it feels like they’ve always been doing this. They kinda have, Niall reminds himself. Time's relative, a link is forever.

“Already home.” Harry whispers, kissing at the edge of zir own arm, the tattoo that glows in sync with the ship at all hours. The ship giggles at Harry, makes a kissy sound back. The bay part of the blueprint glows a peach to match the base color of the grids around them.

The ship has decorated for the landing, encouraged by both Liam and Harry to go as full out as possible. The result is that, over the peach, the bay looks like one strange, amazing display of growing codes. They fall from the ceiling and the walls and line the floor in changing patterns Niall is positive he’s seen on Zayn’s floor. Niall and the ship have been trying out a new growth algorithm and he can see touches of it at the corners, pulling everything together and keeping it tight. Overall, it’s silly and strange and homey. It's a lot of trial and error and fun and laughing off mistakes as happy accidents. It’s them.

Niall nudges at Louis a little bit. "So," he drawls out, quiet. “You thinking, maybe, trying _is_ enough?”

Louis intertwines their fingers, rests his head on Zayn’s shoulder and sighs, “Maybe it is, Nialler.”

Niall squeezes his hand and turns back to watch as they head into the storm. “Cool.”

The room bursts into color.

 

\--

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, in the beginning, I started out with this idea of a story that starts off where we would see a normal one end, the resolution of a conflict, rather than the conflict itself. The cleanup after the war that always takes twice as long as the battle itself, as Tamora Pierce has said, in cleaner terms. Well that, and an image of a space whale that was really cool. 
> 
> But, along the way, I guess I figured out what I was trying to say was really that sometimes the conflict isn’t one point, but rather a series of ripples that reaches outward and into the future - that recovery from conflict is a process that may take some hand holding and that’s okay. It’s okay if trauma changed you and it doesn’t make you any lesser to have dealt with that. I was trying to say that relationships take negotiation and rebuilding and discussion. Even having an emotional pathway direct to someone’s head doesn’t exempt you from the need to ask – “Hey, is this okay, are you okay?”
> 
> So, in the end, I wrote about the different daily motley crews that we’re all a part of. And the unending growing that we do, in and out of and through these crews and the way we very definitively _make_ the best of that. Navigation of the heart. 
> 
> Or at least, I hope it feels like I did. Thanks for sticking it out. <3
> 
> Oh, and for ref, I played around with a lot of concepts similar to solarpunk and sustainable design in this, which are really cool and you should check them out if you’re interested.
> 
> ETA: I'm working on other pieces for this series, bc I just_can't_let_her_go.mp3 but in the meanwhile, I'm over [here](http://imlikenah.tumblr.com), rambling on about this universe in text posts and tags, if you wanna join in. <33


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